HURIWA wants National Assembly to criminalise police extortion of victims of crime

As a consequence of the unprecedented rise in the systematic extortion of victims of crime by police operatives and top ranked officers before their cases are investigated and resolved, prominent Civil Rights Advocacy Group: Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) has canvassed the criminalisation of the atrocious crime by rogue police officers, through a law by the National Assembly.

HURIWA further called on the substantive Inspector General of Police, Mr. Kayode Egbetokun to roll out transparent mechanisms and an effective template against extorting victims of crimes just as the Rights group said verbalisation of condemnation of this criminal tendency by police operatives as made earlier in the year by the Force public relations officer was grossly insufficient.  HURIWA said the police should set up a data bank of police officers caught and sanctioned for extortion of victims of crime in the Country just as the Rights group said the data bank should be made easily accessible to the members of the public.

HURIWA recalled the case of of an Abuja based flight dispatcher who hails from Nasarawa State, Umar Suleiman, whose daughter Khadijat, went missing in the Kuje Area council of the Federal Capital Territory in 2016, who reported the disappearance of his then two and half years old baby daughter to the FCT police command, but the investigator made series of requests which the victim of crime couldn’t afford and for seven years, his daughter is still missing and no effort has been made by the FCT police command to unravel the identity of the lone female kidnapper.

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The group said the fundamental reason crime is getting out of hand is the lack of human intelligence by the police whose operatives are mostly distrusted by a large number of the Nigerian population who have the perception that the police indeed go about extorting citizens just as the Rights group in the media statement by the National Coordinator Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, specifically stated that assurances made by top police officer and the the Force Spokesperson in condemnation of the extortion of victims of crime fell on deaf ears since the cases of extortion of victims of crime have skyrocketed all across the length and breath of Nigeria and is now a hydra headed monster.

HURIWA however faulted the style of simply making a statement in the media by the police without the formulation and enforcement forcefully and persuasively, all across Nigeria, of a transparent, accountable and result- oriented ethical and administrative template for stamping out cases of extortion of victims of crime which has become a sophisticated and widespread practices by the state’s commands of police all over Nigeria and the federal capital territory.

The Rights group accused some rogue police officers of even framing up those crime victims and most times, get them detained for failing to pay the money demanded from them by the police when they reported their encounters with criminals just as most of these persons have no access to any kind of legal redress against their experiences of the activities of the daredevil police extortion rackets.