A rights group, Advocates for Peoples’ Rights and Justice (APRJ), has accused security forces of holding at least eight people in Kogi state without charge or trial in unofficial places of detention.
The human rights organisation lamented that the victims whose whereabouts remained unknown had also been without any form of contact with the outside world since they were arrested by police and navy personnel in the state.
Victor Giwa, the group’s coordinator, said the documented people included Abdulazeez Salami who was picked in 2017; Hon. Musa Adelabu, Monday Idowu, Ismaila Momoh, Rufai Jimoh and Kashim Ismaila (2021) as well as Abdulfatah Tuhari and Hadi Abdulmaliki (2022).
Briefing journalists in Abuja on Sunday, he stressed that the unresolved enforced disappearances of these people underscored the need for action by both the police and naval authorities.
He explained that APRJ had petitioned the Nigeria Police and Nigeria Navy over the alleged violations of the fundamental rights of the eight victims by their personnel.
Giwa alleged that some security operatives “were used by some politicians in the state as the tool for the abduction, maiming and killing of the political opponents while blackmailing the said victims as either terrorist or thugs.
“We, therefore, call for the proper investigation of the indicted police and naval officers for human rights violations, arbitrariness, and possible killing of the innocent Kogi indigenes for political reasons.”