Public Interest Letter Of Extreme Urgency And Importance
Address:
41, Miss Elems Street, Onitsha
Anambra State, Nigeria
Tuesday, Sept 26, 2023
1. Mr. Kayode Egbetokun, PhD
Inspector General of Police
IGP’s Office, Force Headquarters
Louis Edet House, Shehu Shagari Way
Garki, Abuja, FCT, Nigeria
2. Retired IGP Solomon Arase
Chairman of the Police Service Commission
The PSC Corporate Headquarters
Plot 64 Cadastral Zone B16, Sector Centre B
Jabi, FCT, Abuja, Nigeria
Dear PSC Chair/IGP,
To Ensure Participatory, Free, Fair, Credible And Secured Nov 11, 2023 Imo Governorship Election: Time Has Come To Transfer Senior Police Officers In Imo State And Zone 9 Police Commands And Disarm And Demobilize The Imo State Government Ebubeagu Militias And Armed Others
- The International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law (Intersociety); a respected Human Rights and Democracy Voice in Nigeria and beyond since 2008, is writing Your Two Public Offices regarding the above underlined subject matter. Our public interest letter to both of you is in accordance with the constitutional and statutory powers and responsibilities respectively vested on you by the 1999 Constitution of Nigeria as amended, the Police Service Commission Act of 2001 as amended and the Nigeria Police Force and Regulations Act of 2004 as amended. It is specifically important to point out that as the Chairman of the Police Service Commission (Arase) and the Inspector General of Police (Agbetokun, PhD), both of you are respectively vested with powers to appoint, promote, dismiss, retire, demote and take other disciplinary actions against Constables to DIGs (by PSC Chair); and transfer, post and take operational decisions including sanctions against all serving police officers other than the Inspector General of Police (by IGP).
- As both of you are aware, Imo State, located in South-East part of Nigeria will be having a crucial Governorship Election on Nov 11, 2023. As both of you are most likely to be aware too, the security and safety of citizens and properties in the State have been gravely threatened and almost uprooted; to the extent that the State has become “a killing field” since Jan 2021. The GRAVE insecurity and other unsafe conditions enveloping the State are also traced by our several research and investigative Reports to judicially rooted ‘politics of the graveyard’. It must be remembered that some corrupt INEC staffs and their criminal activities perpetrated during the 2019 Imo Governorship Election have been remotely responsible for unchecked atrocities against defenseless citizens and properties in the State since Jan 2021. Some corrupt INEC officials had colluded with some top functionaries and other agents of the present Government of Imo State to ‘harvest results’ from 311 poling units where voting was canceled as a result of violence. The harvested results were packaged to mislead the Supreme Court and formed the basis for the Apex Court’s pronouncement of Hope Uzodinma as ‘Imo Governor’ on 14th Jan 2020. Since then, the State has been embroiled in unchecked mass atrocities brought about by egregious insecurity and other unsafe conditions.
- Statistically speaking, Intersociety (International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law) had in its ‘Special Research and Investigative Report on Imo found that In 29 Months (Jan 2021-May 2023) Under Gov Hope Uzodinma In Nigeria’s Imo State: Security Forces And Allied Militias Killed 900 Unarmed Citizens Outside The Law, Wounded 700, Arbitrarily Arrested And Detained 3500, Extorted 1,400, Disappeared 300, Burned Down 1,200 Civilian Houses, Displaced Their 30,000 Owners And Forced 500,000 Citizens In Active Age-Brackets To Flee To Escape Being Shot And Killed Or Abducted And Disappeared In Security Custody. The Research And Investigative Report Also Found That Armed Non-State Actors: Fulani Jihadists, Hired Ex Niger Delta Militants, Counterfeit Agitators (.i.e. Autopilots and Biafra National Guards), Government-Linked Political Death Squads, Street Violent Criminal Entities (kidnappers and armed robbers), Etc, Killed 700 (400 In Captivity And 300 In Open Shootings) And Abducted 900 Others.
- The 33-Page Report was unveiled on 21st May 2023 at international media conference in Enugu in Eastern Nigeria and was widely published by most of the leading media in Nigeria including the Vanguard, Punch, Sun, This Day, the Nation, the Leadership, the Daily Telegraph, the Daily Independent, Guardian, Daily Post, African Examiner, Daily Asset and News Express, News-Band, the Nigeria-Lawyer, the Trent, West African Pilot, the Nigerian Voice and the African Independent Television (AIT) and some international news media. The Special Report cardinally sought and is still seeking to expose those that killed, abducted, disappeared, arbitrarily arrested and detained and tortured; those that aided, abetted and omitted to act to stop the killings, abductions, disappearances and torture; and those that were killed, abducted, tortured and disappeared. The Report also sought to ascertain: when, where, how and why the killings, abductions, arbitrary arrests and detentions, torture and disappearances and the location and number of houses and other defenseless civilian properties burned down or wantonly destroyed and those that were and still responsible or aided and abetted their burnings or destructions.
- The 33-Page Special Report also contained several sections including local, regional and international legal frameworks, lists of victims and state and non state actor perpetrators, etc. For full details, the link is here: https://intersociety-ng.org/armed-state-actors-and-armed-non-state-actors-killed-1600-unarmed-citizens-in-29-months-in-imo-state/. In the past 120 days or four months after our Special Report of May 21, 2023; over 200 civilian lives and 250 civilian houses and thousands of other properties have been wantonly destroyed by armed state actors especially the drafted personnel of the Nigerian Army, Nigeria Police Force and killer operatives of the Imo Ebubeagu Militias as well as armed non state criminal entities mentioned above. Our Organization, Intersociety, had also on August 28, 2023, released a 15-Page Special Report, titled: “Who Is Killing Who In Igbo Land (including Rivers and Delta States) Since Jan 2021”. Apart from the identifying not less than 20 Government-linked armed killer entities and over 300 ‘street criminal entities’ and tens of thousands of ‘criminal persons’ operating in Igbo Land; the drafted security forces from the Military, the Spy Police and the crack squads of the Nigeria Police Force are also found to be involved in the killings and burnings outside the law in the seven Igbo controlled States. The link to the Report is here: https://intersociety-ng.org/who-is-killing-who-outside-the-law-in-igbo-land/
- Families No Longer Bury Their Dead In Imo: The wanton destruction of lives and properties in 33 months gone by in Imo State under Gov Hope Uzodinma is so shocking, chilling and alarming that many families in the affected local government areas/communities no longer ancestrally give their loved ones who died naturally or unnaturally befitting burials and funerals. Natural and slain dead bodies are mostly smuggled in at nights and secretly and indecently buried, after which their funerals are held or organized outside their ancestral homes including at urban residences located in Umuahia, Owerri, Port Harcourt, Aba, Enugu, Onitsha, Nnewi and so on. The Imo Local Government Areas mostly affected or worst hit by the ongoing grisly and egregious destruction of defenseless lives and properties include Orsu, Orlu, Oru East, Oru West, Mbaitoli, Ngor-Okpala, Oguta, Ohaji/Egbema, Okigwe, Ideato North, Ideato South, Owerri Municipal, Owerri North, Owerri West, Ahiazu-Mbaise, Ezinifite-Mbaise, Onuimo, Njaba, Isu, Nwangele, Nkwere and Ehime-Mbano.
- Imo State of Nigeria under Gov Hope Uzodinma has become the most violent and human rights abusing and violating State in Old Eastern Nigeria and one of the most violent States in the country. The State is majorly troubled by state actor driven insecurity and other unsafe conditions; directly or indirectly funded with Imo public or taxpayers’ funds and perpetrated under the watch of the present Governor and Government of Imo State since January 2021. The State has become so unsafe and insecure under Hope Uzodinma as Imo Governor that from Jan 2021 to this Sept 2023; a period of 33 months or two years and nine months, the deployed security forces and allied militias have killed at least 1,100 defenseless and unarmed citizens, wounded 800, arrested 3800, disappeared 400, invaded 90 communities in at least 20 of the State’s 27 Local Government Areas where at least 1,450 civilian houses and other properties including market stores, event centers and Bars, etc were atrociously burned down or destroyed. The attacks by security forces and allied militias have also displaced at least 60,000 occupants or owners of the 1,450 burned down or destroyed civilian houses from Jan 2021-Sept 2023. The fears generated by the egregious and grisly attacks have forced at least 600,000 defenseless citizens in productive age-brackets to flee their homes and relocate to places considered to be safer to avoid being abducted and killed in custody or shot and killed at sight; or sexually harassed or raped to death in captivity, in the case of young females.
- Our Interest Is To See Imo Voters And Their Properties Secured And Protected:Our priceless interest in Imo State is purely borne out of desire to have decency and sanctity of the Ballot Box restored and Imo voters and their properties secured and protected again in the State after the January 14, 2020 Nigeria’s Supreme Court verdict that installed Hope Uzodinma as Governor. However, the above will be too difficult to achieve in atmosphere of continued onslaughts by unchecked armed state actors and untamed armed non state actors. IGP Kayode Agbetokun (PhD, Peace and Security Studies) and Retired IGP Solomon Arase are hereby strongly called upon to bring their respective expertise and professional career experiences to the fore by ensuring that Imo Voters and their properties are secured and protected to freely vote for Governorship Candidates of their choice on Nov 11, 2023. Apart from ensuring their security and safety, the voting routes and environments and their residences and properties must also be secured and subversive elements within the security forces including deployed police crack squads and all armed non state criminal entities stopped from wrecking more havocs. It is our firm ground that “200,000 living votes are greater than 2m dead votes” in Imo.
- Time To Overhaul The Imo State And Zone Police Commands And Transfer Their Heads: By findings made by our Organization (Intersociety) from its several reports on Imo, the present command structures of the Imo State and the Zone 9 Police Commands should be overhauled ahead of the crucial Nov 11, 2023 Imo Governorship Election. As a matter of fact and extreme urgency, the Imo State Commissioner of Police (Muhammed Barde) and the State Command’s DCP, DCP/ACP-OPS and all the Area Commanders, the Squadron Commanders of the PMF formations in the State and operational commanders of the State Police Command’s crack squads such as the Tiger Base (IRT), SCIB/SCID, Anti Terrorism, Anti Kidnapping, CTU, Anti Bunkering, Anti Cultism and Anti Robbery Squads, etc should be transferred out of the State.
- At Zone 9 Police Command, the AIG in charge and his CP, DCPs, ACPs and heads of the Zonal operations and other crack squads should be transferred out of the Zone. Apart from woefully failing to ensure security and safety and protection of lives and properties in Imo State in particular and other areas under Zone 9 Command in general since Jan 2021; in accordance with Section 4 of the Nigeria Police Force and Regulations Act of 2004 and Section 14 (2) (b) of the 1999 Constitution as amended, the officers and their offices above mentioned have overstayed their welcome. Reports by Intersociety have several times found them inescapably culpable in matters of corruption and gross misconducts including grave rights abuses and violations.
- Location Of Collation Centers Must Be Outside Imo State Government-Gripped Arenas
As it was the case in the 2023 National/State Assembly Elections in Imo during which ward and local government result collation centers were strongly alleged to have been relocated to the Local Government chairmen’s offices and other arenas under the violent grip of the present Government of Imo State, its political appointees and associates; the location of the above mentioned result collation centers for the Nov 11, 2023 Governorship Election in the State must be cited by the INEC in public schools or other public places outside the grip, control and dictation of the political appointees and “elected” officials of the Government of Imo State and “elected” or appointed federal officials from the State. Such result collation centers for the Nov 11, 2023 Governorship Election must be accessible to all the parties and their designated agents and place in the hands of neutral and impartial security agents and their commanders. IGP, Kayode Agbetokun, PhD, is therefore called upon to ensure that armed thugs and militias are not allowed access into such result collation centers. The delegated INEC officials and the Election Day police officers must also insist on carrying out their assignments in the presence of all the parties/candidates and their agents and delegated security agents and agencies authorized by the IGP.
- Avoid Policing The Harvesting Of Results Where Voting Will Not Take Place In Imo On Nov 11
As it was the case in the 2023 National/State Assembly Elections in Imo State, the incumbent Government of the State and some compromised senior and junior staffs of INEC were strongly accused of harvesting ‘magic election results’ from most of the polling centers located in Local Government Areas/Communities where the Commission declared unsafe and insecure for voting. As it was also strongly alleged, some corrupt and compromised INEC officials escorted by some criminal security agents drawn from police crack squads and military personnel and armed thugs and militias operating under their cover and protection had headed to some arenas under the influence of some top political appointees in the present Government of Imo State with result sheets where they were filled with fake results and indented as “places where voting had taken place and results produced”. Such sharp practices were alleged to have taken place in places like Okigwe, Orsu, Oru East, Oru West, Ihube, Aku, Ihitenansa, Orlu, etc. Intersociety hereby strongly calls on you, IGP Kayode Agbetokun, PhD to ensure delegated police personnel and their superiors as well as armed militias and thugs do not police or escort corrupt INEC officials to places declared by INEC on intelligence advice to be unsafe for voting in Imo on Nov 11, 2023 Governorship Election for purpose of harvesting fake results.
- Imo Government Officials And Federal Lawmakers Must Not Pocket Pre/Election Day Policing
IGP Kayode Agbetokun is specially called upon to forensically monitor the operational activities of the commanders of the Imo State and Zone 9 Police Commands and others classified as “IGP Tactical Squads” stationed in the State. As it was severally reported weeks to the 2023 National/State Assembly Elections in Imo State and on Election Day proper, several opposition parties’ officials are routinely subjected to unlawful and politically motivated arrest and arbitrary detention (without charge and fair trial) and deliberately kept incommunicado till the Election Day or after the Election Day. Cases of similar unlawful arrest and incommunicado-detention involving “stubborn electoral officers” were also reported. In all of the above, strong accusing fingers are pointed against commanders of the police crack squads such as Anti Robbery, Anti Terrorism, Anti Cult, Anti Kidnapping, IRT-Tiger Base, the IGP crack squads, etc.
The Imo State Government officials including some serving Commissioners, Local Government Transition Chairmen, State Lawmakers and Federal Lawmakers and Ministers from the State must be forensically monitored by the Nigeria Police Force under IGP Kayode Agbetokun particularly a week or two to the Nov 11, 2023 Governorship Election and on Election Day so as to prevent them from converting Election Duty police personnel and their commanders and security and safety equipment in their possession into their private armies and armories. All of the above were reported to be the case during the 2023 National/State Assembly Elections in the State; during which Election Duty police officers and their equipment such as Armored Personnel Carriers, patrol vans and arms were converted into private use by some political leaders of the State ruling APC including some of the present Principal Officers of the National Assembly from the State and present members of the Imo State House of Assembly. Some of the affected places included Nkwere, Mbaitolu, Obowo, etc.
- Ebubeagu Militias And Others And Their Unlawful Conducts Must Be Tamed On Election Day
By the consequential effects of the Landmark Judgment of the Abakiliki Division of the Federal High Court in February 2023, following abduction and attempted murder in Nov 2022 of Hon Abia Onyeike, a former Commissioner for Information and State Orientation, the Imo State Government funded Ebubeagu Militias (Vigilante Group) are now an unlawful armed group and therefore must not be allowed any operational space during the Nov 11, 2023 Imo State Governorship Election. It is recalled that the Federal High Court sitting in Abakiliki had in Feb 2023 proscribed the Ebubeagu Vigilante Group in Ebonyi State for “engaging in human rights abuses, extortions, illegal arrests and illegal use of firearms”. By Section 287 (3) of the 1999 Constitution as amended, “the decisions of the Federal High Court or a State High Court, etc shall be enforced in any part of the Federation by all authorities and persons-and by other courts of law with subordinate jurisdiction to that of the Federal High Court…”. IGP Kayode Agbetokun, PhD, is hereby strongly called upon to ensure that the murderous Imo State Government funded Ebubeagu Militias (Vigilante Group) and allied others such as the hired Ex Niger Delta Militants, the “Ohaji Confraternity Cultists” and other Government-linked Political Death Squads are not allowed access to all the poling units or ward, local government/district and State result collation centers. They must also be disarmed and demobilized a week to the Election and made to remain same after the Nov 11, 2023 Imo Governorship Election.
Signed:
For: International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law
Emeka Umeagbalasi, Board Chairman
(B.Sc. Criminology and Security Studies, M.Sc. Peace Studies and Conflict Resolution)
Chinwe Umeche Esquire (LL.B, BL)
Head, Democracy and Good Governance
Obianuju Joy Igboeli Esquire (LL.B, BL)
Head, Civil Liberties and Rule of Law
Chidinma Evangeline Udegbunam Esquire (LL.B, BL)
Head, Campaign and Publicity
Contacts:
Email: info@intersociety-ng.org
Website: https://intersociety-ng.org
CC: The National Security Adviser, Aso Rock, Abuja, Nigeria
The Minister of Interior, Abuja, Nigeria