The Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) has condemned the Kano state police command over the extra judicial killing of a 26-year old man, Abdulkadir Nasir, who was surrendered to the police voluntarily by his father – Nasiru Madobi.

HURIWA also condemned as abominable and unconstitutional the failure of the Department of State Services (DSS) to release the duo of Omoyele Sowore and Olawale Bakare from the dungeons of the secret police even after they met the stiff bail conditions slammed on them by the Federal High Court presided over by Justice Ijeoma Ojukwu.

HURIWA also condemned the reported use of lethal weapons by the DSS to disperse activists who had gathered on the DSS' premises to demand that the DSS obey the Federal High court orders and release Sowore and Bakare.

"HURIWA is hereby urging the European Union and the United States government to impose sanctions on the government of President Muhammadu Buhari which has become autocratic and has serially disrespected binding decisions of the competent courts of law which is provided for in Section 6 of the Constitution.

HURIWA specifically affirmed that the relevant constitutional provisions confers the judicial powers of Nigeria on the courts as stated unambiguously in Section 6.

The rights group, while expressing worry, that Nigeria has speedily regressed to a state of impunity and lawlessness by armed security forces, said the Inspector General of Police, Mohammed Adamu, should be compelled by President Muhammadu Buhari and the National Assembly to immediately arrest all the police operatives responsible for the brutal killing of the Kano boy so that they are prosecuted and legally sanctioned for premeditated murder.

It also wants the National Assembly to constitute a special police detention facilities’ audit teams to undertake forensic audits of all police cells with a view to shutting down all identifiable “death camps” administered by the police whereby suspects are held, tortured and extra-legally executed by the police.

HURIWA canvassed that credible civil Rights advocacy groups should be included in the police audits teams that will undertake the assessment tours of police detention centres all across Nigeria to find out the torture chambers administered by the Nigerian Police Force.

HURIWA lamented that despite the existence of abundance of knowledge of 'execution and torture chambers and cells' even known to the public in which hundreds of suspects may have been extra-legally slaughtered by the police, the National Assembly and the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) are not in a hurry to transparently expose these evils, name, shame and prosecute indicted police operatives.

In a statement by its National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, and the National Media Affairs Director, Zainab Yusuf, the rights group recalled that police in Kano tortured to death 26-year-old Abdulkadir Nasiru, after his father took him to police station for questioning even as HURIWA gathered from media reports that the father handed over the son to the Madobi Police Station after policemen went to his residence in search of him over a case of neighborhood gang fight.

HURIWA recalled that Madobi, the father of the deceased told the media that as a law-abiding citizen, when his son returned home he took him voluntarily to the police station for interrogation.

HURIWA quoted the media as reporting the bereaved father as stating that: “A quarrel ensued when a policeman started slapping and beating him in my presence after an argument. When another officer joined the quarrel to beat him, he started retaliating."

HURIWA also recalled further that the father stated to the media that three more policemen soon took sticks to beat his son to a pulp and added that the situation made me leave the police station immediately as I could not stand the pain of seeing my son being beaten on a simple matter that can be resolved among parents.

“This classical case of targeted execution of the 26 year old citizen demonstrates the lack of respect for the sanctity of human life which is covered under section 33(1) of the Nigerian constitution. The United Nations rapporteur on torture and extra-legal executions had on two occasions’ indicted Nigerian security forces including police over wanton extrajudicial killings of suspects but till date nothing has changed.”

HURIWA also stated that the implication is that most people wouldn't trust the Nigerian police force with information of any known crime since their operatives have become torture experts and extra-legal executioners in flagrant disregard of the Constitution.

Update news