The Police Service Commission (PSC) has been told to investigate and dismiss The Enugu State Police Commissioner (CP) Ahmad Abdurrahman for his role in the Sunday, August 23, 2020 massacre of unarmed Igbo youths in Emene, the industrial area of Enugu State.

The International Society for Civil Liberties & the Rule of Law (Intersociety) made the request in a petition dated Friday, 28th August, 2020 addressed to PSC Chairman, Retired IGP Musiliu Smith.

Intersociety said in the petition: “The massacred and the injured included sports enthusiasts engaging in various sporting activities in the School’s Premises or Field. The sporting activities include football, gymnastics, martial arts, volley ball, physical fitness exercises, etc; as well as those in church services and leisure and mental rehearsal activists, etc. The war-like shootings and killings had violently disrupted various church services involving Catholic Church and Pentecostals; forcing the converged and the converging to run helter skelter in a bid to doge and escape from raining police and military live bullets.

The shootings and killings were professionally and secularly avoidable but owing to crude, unprofessional, hate and racial policing applied in the instant case, the reverse was brutally the case. For instance, the SSS, instigator of the massacre, acted crudely unprofessional in its so called “gathered intelligence” by playing the role of “jack of all trades and master of none”. The Enugu State Police Commissioner, CP Ahmad Abdurrahman, manifested the crudest form of ‘butchery policing’ when he incompetently mismanaged the incident and turned same into a war theatre and killing field of “the war-like armed versus the defenselessly unarmed”. He not only ordered the massacre but also usurped the powers of the Executive Governor and Chief Security Officer of Enugu State. This the CP did by unlawfully and unconventionally deploying the State’s Security Joint Taskforce-JTF (comprising soldiers, air force, SSS and various police crack squads,etc). By law and convention, it is only the Governor of Enugu State that can deploy same under situations of extreme complex security threats (i.e. bloody inter communal conflict).”

According to Intersociety, “Contrary to Police and SSS reports, independent eyewitnesses including residents of the area factually and believably disclosed that the Community High School Field had for years played host to various categories of sports enthusiasts and leisure and mental rehearsal activists including children who gathered every Sunday for the referenced purposes. Joining them are different Pentecostal Church congregants and those of the nearby St Joseph Catholic Church who conduct their Sunday church services.

“But last Sunday, 23rd August 2020, armed SSS personnel stormed the School Premises and violently disrupted clusters of persons assembling peacefully including some pro Biafra activists and religionists engaging in civil sporting activities such as martial arts and foot balling. The violence used had included violent arrest and firing of live bullets at close range with intent to massacre as administratively ordered or directed; leading to those bearing anti bullet charms withstanding same and refusing to run. Live bullets fired at close range by SSS personnel eventually hit and felled some “ordinary” or non-anti bullets charm bearers, leading to angers and tempers rising to a boiling proportion, forcing the SSS personnel to retreat. The crude and butchery deployment of armed soldiers, air force, SSS and various police crack squads by CP Ahmad Abdulrrahman escalated the shootings and killings and turned same into a massacre.”

On its request, Intersociety said in the petition signed by Emeka Umeagbalasi, Chair of the Board; Lawyer Amaka Damaris Onuoha, Head, Campaign & Publicity; and Lawyer Obianuju Joy Igboeli, Head, Civil Liberties & Rule of Law Programme: “CP Ahmad Abdurrahman Should Be Dismissed: We hereby strongly demand for thorough investigation over his role in the massacre. He should also be dismissed from the Nigeria Police Force. Apart from his manifest bias and perceived crude and hate policing method applied, the CP recklessly abused his office and power, contrary to Section 15 (5) of the Constitution when he unilaterally and magisterially undermined the status of the Enugu Gov as “the chief security officer of Enugu State” and “chairman and capital financier of the State’s Joint Security Taskforce or JTF”. A well trained, intelligent, unbiased and ethno-religiously secular CP should not have acted the way he did including deployment of war-like soldiers and police officers and ordering them to shoot and kill defenseless citizens at close range.

“Condemn The Death Of Two Igbo SSS Operatives: We also strongly condemn the reported death during the massacre of two SSS operatives who are of Igbo extraction including one who hailed from Afikpo North LGA of Ebonyi State. Intersociety is strongly opposed to all forms of deaths or killings outside the law including killing of security personnel and unarmed citizens. However, by convention, it is better for ‘ten weaponized security agents to die than to lose an innocent and defenseless citizen’.”

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