Prominent Civil rights advocacy group- Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HUTIWA) has cautioned the police against unlawful arrest of innocent citizens of Imo state.
The police, HURIWA in a statement, insists, are not above the law and must comply totally with the provisions of the law since it is a creation of the law.
HURIWA also advised the police to understudy the South East where they are posted from all parts of the Country, so they get acquainted with the socio-cultural practices and traditions of the people of the region to avoid the unlawful arrest of members of the African traditional Religions on the disguised allegations that they are using their shrines to pray for persons perceived as being responsible for the spate of attacks that targeted strategic national security assets in the South East of Nigeria.
HURIWA said security forces have consistently attacked shrines of African traditional worshippers and have had to parade them as collaborators with the so called unknown gunmen and at the end of the day, the police have failed to get any conviction from all these arrests.
READ ALSO: Only political rogues, drug peddlers can afford APC’s N100m presidential form- HURIWA
HURIWA which condemned strongly the attacks on strategic national security assets and have also condemned the killing of police operatives, also accused the police in the South East of Nigeria and especially the Imo State command of the widespread use of extrajudicial execution of suspects in their detention facilities and during their security operations in parts of Imo State just as the Rights group said the allegations that police dump unidentified corpses of young Igbo boys in the Federal medical centre in Owerri, Imo State, is a serious indictments that must be investigated by the International Criminal Court in The Hagues Netherlands so those responsible for these crimes against humanity are prosecuted for these odious and gruesome killings.
HURIWA also faulted the parade of a so-called bomb maker by the police in Imo State just as the Rights group said from the photo evidence of what the police termed bomb making equipment which they paraded with the lone suspect as celebrated in some sections of the Nigerian media.
“It would seem that what the police calls ‘bomb making’ materials are some locally fabricated non-lethal explosives that are used during burials to shoot 21 gun salutes to deserving members of the Igbo communities which in Igboland is called NKPO NA ANI.
HURIWA recalled that The Imo State Police Command on Friday said it arrested and paraded a 50-year-old-man one Simeon Onigbo, suspected to be a bomb manufacturer for the Indigenous People of Biafra.
“The State Police Public Relations Officer, PPRO, Micheal Abattam, disclosed this to newsmen in Owerri.The command said it was last Wednesday it uncovered and raided the IPOB bomb manufacturing camp at Uba Umuaka in Njaba Local Government Area of Imo State, based on the credible information that was made available to the Police.”