The Rule of Law Accountability and Advocacy Centre, RULAAC has urged the Inspector General of Police, IGP Usman Alkali Baba topt an end to the atrocities going on at the Anti-Kidnapping Unit of the Imo State Police command.
In a Statement issued on Friday, the Executive Director, RULAAC, Mr. Okechukwu Nwanguma that the Anti-Kidnapping Unit of the Imo State Police Command was doing every single thing that the disbanded Federal- Special Anti Robbery Squad (F-SARS) was doing that led to the ENDSARS protests in 2020.
Nwanguma added that the current Commissioner of Police, Imo State Command, CP Ahmed Barde does not respond to complaints about the excesses of that “clearly rogue” unit headed by one Superintendent of Police simply identified as Ola.
Narrating an incident that occurred at the Unit recently, he said, “Last December (2022), RULAAC received information concerning a case of 2 young men who were arrested one evening and taken to the Anti-Kidnapping Unit at Tiger Base, Owerri and detained without being told what their offenses were.
“Their statements were not obtained until the next day when they were brought out and asked to make statements. They stated that they didn’t know what offense they committed that warranted their arrest. They said they drove to an ATM stand along Wetheral Road, Owerri in the evening of the previous day to draw some cash and found themselves rounded up by two armed police officers who were part of a convoy.
“The Officers searched them and their vehicles thoroughly and found nothing incriminating and then ordered them into one of their vehicles and drove them to Tiger Base. Other officers drove in their own car.
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“After going through their statements, the officer interrogating them asked them to write that they belong to a cult group but they objected and said they don’t belong to any cult group. One of the young men told the Officer that he’s a fresh graduate of law from Imo State university awaiting law school, and the other, his electrician who came and repaired some electrical fault in his house and they both drove to the ATM stand for him to withdraw cash to pay him for the work he did for him.
“The officer insisted and used different objects to brutalize them, including using machetes to flog them at their back, inflicting injuries on them, in a bid to intimidate and compel them to admit to a crime they did not commit.”
“When RULAAC spoke with the young men after they were released, they informed us that many people they met in the cell are being held incommunicado without any of their relatives knowing their whereabouts. Some had spent weeks and months with gunshot injuries festering and smelling and in bad state of health. They live in starvation. They are never charged to court
“RULAAC forwarded this information to the CP Imo but he ignored the messages and phone calls,” he added.
The Executive Director, therefore, called on the IGP to intervene and sanitize the Imo State Police command.
