HURIWA decries violent attacks on police operatives
Says Police, all lives matter
Civil rights advocacy group, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) has condemned the indiscriminate, violent attacks targeting mostly police operatives by insurgents in all parts of Nigeria.
The group has asked the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Usman Alkali Baba to roll out strategies for practical revitalisation of moribund police community relations committee to abridge the gulf between police and the policed.
HURIWA’s national coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, in a statement, yesterday, said the quantum of hatred for the average police operative by the civil populace is mind-boggling, demanding that quick win steps are adopted to bring this sentiment of hate to a quick end.
On extra-judicial killings, HURIWA said no reason is strong enough to justify the targeting of unarmed persons, stressing that the police hierarchy at both national and sub national levels are grossly lacking in the enforcement of strong deterrent administrative sanctions against indicted police officers who still carry out extra judicial killings of suspects in the police custody across the country.
The rights group said it is in the self-enlightened interest of the police as an institution that extrajudicial killings are stamped out immediately and indicted rogue police operatives prosecuted.
HURIWA called for the setting up of a full-fledged human rights department in the police headed by a well- trained human rights compliant Deputy Inspector General of Police and the department well funded to have forensic laboratories to undertake investigations in cases of extrajudicial killings by the police.
It said: “ What should be done is to roll out concrete programmes of dialogues and active partnership between the civil society and the Police because there is widespread distrust of the police of Nigeria by a large percentage of Nigerians. These police operatives being slaughtered are our sons, daughters, brothers and sisters. There is the urgency of the now for effective non-kinetic mechanisms by the IGP and his commissioners all over Nigeria.”
