The Chief of Army Staff (CAS), Lieutenant General Taoreed Lagbaja, and Inspector General of Police (IGP), Kayode Egbetokun, have been asked to call their men and operatives to order over alleged harassment and extortion of civilians on eastern roads.

Lamenting the development, yesterday, National Coordinator, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA), Emmanuel Onwubiko, said men and operatives of the army, including the police, in the southeastern part of Nigeria, were mounting roadblocks and using these as platforms for extortion and harassment of the civilian population going to join their kith and kin for Yuletide celebrations.

He drew the attention of the CAS, the IGP, and the Commandant-General of Civil Defence Corps to the unfortunate scenarios, and crimes of bribery and intimidation of motorists by their operatives in the southeast.

He urged them to redirect their focus towards maintaining law and order and undertaking lawful internal security operations to weed out armed hoodlums causing insecurity and instability in the region.

Onwubiko noted that there is no fundamental difference between rogue soldiers, police, civil defence operatives and nominal armed non-state actors committing horrendous crimes against citizens.

According to him, fishing out these undesirable elements is key to ensuring the restoration of professionalism and discipline in the Armed Forces.

He also warned soldiers to avoid extrajudicial execution of citizens, stressing that adherence in its strictest sense to the rules of engagement is strategic for members of the Armed Forces.

He said the heads of security agencies must, as a matter of urgency, take steps to weed out bad eggs among their operatives in internal security operations around the nation and especially in the southeast.

This will engender confidence from members of the public, he said.

Onwubiko also called on governors of the five southeast states to team up and work out implementable strategies to safeguard the life and property of their people.