Blaming
the Anambra state police commissioner Mr. John Abang over his unguarded and
irresponsible statement warning the leader of the proscribed indigenous peoples
of Biafra (IPOB) Mr. Nnamdi Kanu not to attend his mother’s burial for the
renewed conflict between the police and suspected street urchins in Anambra
state, the prominent Rights group – HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA
(HURIWA) has demanded his immediate dismissal.
Also,
the Rights group has absolutely condemned the persistent physical violence by
the police visited on the lawyer to the leader of IPOB Mr. Ifeanyi Ejiofor
including the recent invasion of his private residence in his Oraifite hometown
which led to the razing down of his housing assets allegedly by the police, the
killing allegedly of his relatives just as the group sympathized with the
families of all those killed in the riot that ensued including the two police
operatives reportedly burnt to death by riotous crowd displeased by the
violence unleashed allegedly by the police on the premises of the legal
representative of the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB). HURIWA said the
invasion of the lawyer's residence was provocative, illegal, despicable and a
grave violations of his constitutional rights to privacy.
Canvassing
the immediate convocation of the Anambra state’s judicial commission of inquiry
on the invasion of the home of the lawyer to IPOB, the alleged killings by police
of civilians and the alleged reprisal killing of police by some crowds, HURIWA
expressed shock that the Anambra state governor Willie Obiano has not set up a
probe panel till date.
“Honestly
speaking, in as much as we are unhappy over the killing of civilians and the
policemen, we want Nigerians to hold the commissioner of police responsible for
this breach of peace following his illegal, unconstitutional and unwarranted
provocative statement in which he was quoted as asking Nnamdi Kanu not to return
for his mother’s burial.”
This
statement credited to the police commissioner is absolutely irresponsible and
uncalled for because he lacks the power to stop any citizen from visiting his
country of birth. The police commissioner is neither the Nigerian president nor
is he the comptroller General of immigration for him to appropriate the power
(a power that is null, void and of no legal effect) of stopping a citizen from
his freedom of movement which even the president lacks so far as the person is
a citizen of Nigeria. Why make such a careless statement and then invade the
home of the legal representative of IPOB as if the lawyer has no constitutional
rights to freedom of association and to meet with his clients as a practicing
lawyer?”
HURIWA
in a statement with the National coordinator Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko and the
Media Affairs Director Zainab Yusuf condemned the declaration of the lawyer to
IPOB as a wanted person by the police because it would seem that the police
officers and the Anambra state police command are both the prosecutor and the
judge in their own case and acting as if Nigeria has become a banana republic.
The group said the arrogance of power by the Anambra state police commissioner
must be checked since no man is above the law.
“We
call on the Anambra state governor to wake up, constitute a judicial
investigative panel to uncover the remote and immediate causes of the
disturbances and the invasion by police of the home of the lawyer to IPOB and
the alleged killings that took place as a consequence of that illegality just
as the Rights group asked the police to restrain themselves from bringing any
physical harm on the person of the lawyer of IPOB and to allow the due process
of the law to take its full course.
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