Police extortion may trigger worse #ENDSARS protest, HURIWA warns

Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) has predicted an impending bigger nationwide protests by citizens against increasing involvement of Police operatives in armed robbery-like extortions if President Muhammadu Buhari and the National Assembly fail to revive the Police Service Commission (PSC).

HURIWA, in a statement by its National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, warned that the next civil disobedience protests against Police extortion and gross human rights violations would not be hijacked by reactionary forces embedded within government to destroy the kernel and objectives of the movement,  but the rights group said it is in the self enlightened interest of President Muhammadu Buhari,  the National Assembly and all political stakeholders,  that urgent and transparent steps were adopted to weed out all the armed robbers, swindlers, extortion racketeering gangsters who have found their way into the Nigeria Police Force to avoid precipitating the kind of nationwide protests that may further damage national economy in a bigger way than the last #ENDSARS protests two years back.

HURIWA however criticized the longstanding institutional weakening of the Police Service Commission due to the practice of appointing retired Inspectors-General of Police to head the body.

It also described the current leadership of PSC, headed by ex-IGP Musliu Smith, as the ‘undertaker’ of the Commission due to rudderless and incompetent leadership.

HURIWA said the Commission has been destroyed by the current hierarchy and grounded in Ground Zero.

Furthermore, the group questioned the integrity of the process of promotions done recently by the PSC, going by widespread allegations of financial inducements for Police promotions.

“We are worried by the fact that the Nigeria Police Force of today has become a house of commotion and gross indiscipline even as there are now more armed robbers disguised as police in Nigeria with the reports of the involvement of the operatives in all kinds of extortion rackets similar to kidnapping, hijacking and forceful collection of ransom by police operatives. The NPF is now not different from the ‘forests’ of kidnappers and terrorists,” Onwubiko said.

HURIWA recalled that just few weeks back in Anambra State, a businessman, Chief John Elochukwu, petitioned the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, SAN, alleging extortion of N18 million from him by the Special Criminal Investigation Department, SCID-Annex, Awkuzu Unit in Oyi Local Government Area of Anambra state.

Elochukwu in the petition to the AGF wondered why the police authorities have declined to properly investigate the matter while the affected police officers and their civilian accomplices responsible for his abduction, detention and extortion are walking freely and boasting that nothing would happen.

Also the Police Command in Kwara says it has initiated an investigation against 26 officers and men over alleged harassment, intimidation and extortion. This is contained in a statement issued in Ilorin by the Command Spokesman, SP Okasanmi Ajayi.

Ajayi said that the affected officers were attached to Anti-cultist and Anti-cybercrime units. According to him, all the officers and men have been redeployed out of the units pending the outcome of the investigation.

HURIWA recalled that some operatives of the Nigeria Police, Osun State Command, recently returned the money it extorted from students of the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife.

The operatives, according to a statement issued by the National Association of University Students (NAUS), Osun State Chapter, signed by its Chairman, Eruobami Ayobami, stormed the Modomo area in Ile-Ife around 6 am last week Friday and allegedly extorted some students in the area of the sum of N150,000

He added that the union, while on a courtesy visit to the State Commissioner of Police, Olawale Olokode, stressed the need for the Command to rid itself of unscrupulous elements to save its integrity.

HURIWA similarly condemned the widespread extortion by men of the Nigeria Police Force in South East, South West and Abuja.

HURIWA faulted proposed measures by the NPF to hold Divisional Police Officers responsible for the misdemeanour of personnel under their jurisdiction, saying that it amounted to usurping the functions of the PSC.

HURIWA, therefore, urged President Muhammadu Buhari and the National Assembly to unbundled, reorganise and rejig the Police Service Commission to compel the body to resume doing her statutory duties to eradicate police extortion and human rights violation of civilians.