The
Human Rights Writers' Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) has condemned the recent
parading by the Ogun state police command of a two-month old baby, the mother
and a teenager for alleged robbery committed by the father.
HURIWA
in a statement by the national coordinator Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko and the
national media affairs director Miss. Zainab Yusuf described the action as
atrocious, primitive and a total breach of the fundamental human rights of a
Nigerian child.
The
group faulted the "primitive and unconstitutional practice of parading
crime suspects before they are properly charged to the competent courts of law,
citing section 36[5] which provides that crime suspects remain innocent in the
eye of the law until proven guilty by the court of competent jurisdiction."
HURIWA
also cited chapter four of the constitution containing the fundamental rights
of every Nigerian citizen as providing for fair hearing to be given to any
crime suspect arrested for any kind of offence.
The
body wants the federal government to fish out the police officers responsible
for "this dastardly act that is totally unconstitutional, illegal and
criminal" and punish them to serve as deterrent for future breach of the
rights of the Nigerian children.
The
police in the Ogun state had reportedly paraded baby Oyinkansola Adeosun, his
mother Mrs. Fausat and 15 year old teenager Tobi Adeosun over an alleged
robbery committed by the baby's father-Ismail Adeosun who fled before the
police arrived the house.
The
Ogun state police commissioner Mr Ikemefuna Aduba said the mother of the baby
and the teenager were arrested for allegedly keeping gun for her husband but
the woman claimed that she was no longer married to the fleeing robbery suspect
and that she consistently asked the man to take away the gun which one of the
arrested brothers was in the process of removing before all of them were
apprehended by the police operatives.
3/4/2013
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