Group tasks Police Service Commission on extrajudicial killings by officers

Rule of law and Accountability Advocacy Centre (RULAAC) has called on the Police Service Commission (PSC) to ensure that cases of extrajudicial killing of citizens by police officers are not swept under the carpet.

The Centre charged the commission to ensure thorough investigations into those cases to ensure that the police  officers responsible are prosecuted and adequate compensations paid to victims.

RULAAC in a statement signed by its executive director, Okechukwu Nwanguma, said the Centre was seriously concerned about increasing incidents of Police misuse of firearms and extrajudicial killing across the  country banning civic protests.

He added that it is also concerned about the Inspector General of Police (IGP’s) alleged often “illegal directives” to police officers to use maximum force to q uell protests.

“This is indicative that the Police have learnt no lessons from the recent  #EndSARS experience,” the group said. RULAAC notes that announcing the arrest and detention of police officers responsible for extrajudicial killings in the past by Police authorities has never been a guarantee of genuine commitment by  police authorities to ensure that such  unlawful killings of innocent citizens  by police officers would be promptly,  impartially and effectively investigated  with a view to ensuring that  perpetrators are prosecuted and victims or their families accorded adequate remedies and compensation.  According to

RULAAC, a member of  a police team on a stop and search duty shot dead a 27-year-old commercial motorcycle operator at the  Banana Junction, Orlu, Imo State on  July  9, 2020 ‘for failure to  use a  face mask and refusal to give a N50 bribe’.

The status of the police investigation promised by the Commissioner of  Police, Imo State into this killing, the group recalled is  still shrouded in secrecy till date.

RULAAC said: “As in the case of the  commercial motorcyclists killed in  Orlu,  the  police officers  who shot  Mr.  Jude  Oguzie Mmezi  also  took  to  their  heels  after  they  committed  the  murder.

“As  in  the  case  of  Mr.  Jude  Oguzie  Mmezi,  the  Imo  State  Police  Command also announced that the  police officers, who killed the  commercial motorcyclist, had been arrested and detained to face  internal disciplinary proceedings. But  till date, nothing more has been heard of  that  case.”

The group said the increasing incidents of Police misuse of firearms and extrajudicial killing across the country were very disturbing.

“These developments, coming so soon  after the experience of the #EndSARS  protests, give serious cause for concern and appears to be  encouraged by illegal police orders  banning civic protests, and the  often repeated directives to police officers  by  the IGP to use force to quell  protests.

“Ultimately, it is indicative that the  Police have learnt no lessons from the #EndSARS experience. It was never  expected that such high number of  cases of unprovoked and unlawful police killings, would so soon be recorded in Nigeria post the EndSARS protest,” the group said.

Recounting the incidents across some States, the group said in Ekiti  State, drunk Policemen shot a man  dead at Queens Court Hotel along  AdoIkere Road, Ekiti  State  in  the  night  of  Saturday, November  21,  2020.

They claimed that a team of drunk officers drove into the hotel, allegedly  threatened to kill some of the guests  and opened fire all of a sudden and  one of the hotel guests, a young man  named Olaoye Abayomi, was killed.

In Imo State, RULAAC said: “On  Saturday,  December  5,  2020, Mr.  Mmezi, a native of Umuamusa Autonomous Community (Old  Amucha) in Njaba LGA of Imo State  was killed by a team of policemen at a checkpoint somewhere at Orodo, Mbaitolu LGA, Imo State.

“In Rivers State, on  Thursday,  December 10, 2020 youths in  Rukpoku and Rumuodomayah communities in Obio Akpor Local  Government Area of Rivers State  were reported to have occupied the  streets in protest, following the killing  of  a  commercial  tricycle operator by  police officers.

“It was reported that a policeman  around Rukpoku asked the Keke  driver for ₦100 bribe, which the driver  could not provide. The police officer  was said  to have fired point blank at  the driver killing him on the spot. The  death of the tricycle operator  provoked the youths and other  members of the community who set burnfires on the streets in protest.”

RULAAC explained that the protest  in Rukpoku snowballed into a full blown riot and spread to neighbouring  Rumuodomaya  community.

Another person, the group added, was reported to have been shot dead, following confrontations between the protesting youths and the police.