•Asks Malami to explain the retention of service chiefs
A non-governmental organisation, Centre for Law and Civil Culture (CLCC), has asked the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Mohammed Abubakar Adamu, to confirm whether there is any official directive that before hospitals attend to any victim of accident and gunshot, they must obtain permission from the police.
The CLCC made the request in a letter to the IG dated September 22, 2020, and entitled “Freedom of Information Request on the Frequent Rejection of Accident/Gunshot Victims by various Hospitals Across Nigeria on the ground of non-Production of Police report.”
The Executive Secretary, Abdulganeey Imran, and the Legal Officer, Deborah Okpanachi, jointly signed the letter in which they demanded to know “whether the Nigerian Police Force is aware of the incessant and frequent rejection of accident and gunshot victims by various hospitals, both private and public, across the country on the ground of consequent and likely arrest and intimidation of medical personnel by the men of the Nigerian Police for treating gunshot/accident victims without production of the police report.”
They are also asking “whether it is an official directive from the Nigerian Police or the office of the IG that hospitals across the country should not attend to gunshot/accident victims without production of the police report.”
The group wants to know whether the IG has the power to make such a directive under any extant law and the steps taken to disabuse the minds of medical personnel and the general public that the police have not issued any such directive.
Essentially, the CLCC is requested to know the appropriate punishment to be meted out to any police officer/station or command that harasses, intimidates, molests, or arrests any medical personnel who attends to gunshot/ accident victims.
Similarly, the group has written to the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF), Abubakar Malami (SAN), to explain the legality of the tenure elongation for the service chiefs.
In a letter dated September 23, 2020, and addressed to the AGF, the CLCC wondered whether the retention of the service chiefs, who were appointed sometimes in July 2015 by President Muhammadu Buhari, does not amount to illegality, considering that their tenure in the armed forces had since expired.
