Boko Haram: Trial of seven policemen to address human rights abuse – Osayande

BY KINGSLEY OMONOBI

ABUJA – Chairman of the Police Service Commission, DIG Parry Osayande (rtd), disclosed yesterday that the decision of the Commission to order the trial of seven Police officers accused of extra-judicial killing of the leader of the Boko Haram, Mallam Mohammed Yusuf in 2009, was based on the fact the Commission was very serious about issues concerning human rights abuses.

Osayande made the disclosure even as he pointed out that between 50% and 60% of cases of accidental discharge and extra judicial killings by Police personnel were perpetrated by some recruits of the force, particularly the ‘dregs’ of society, some mentally deranged and others with questionable background who in the past smuggled their way into the Police.

Speaking when he received members of the National Working Group of Human Rights Treaty Reporting in Abuja, DIG Osayande said, “that is why we have adopted modern approaches to recruitment of officers and men into the Nigeria Police Force and these measures include the use of biometrics and other equipment that will show either you are an ex-convict, fraudster, 419ner or have cheated where you worked before, age cheats or someone who had been a psychiatric patient”.

Recalling an instance when a nurse who once had a mad man with mental problem as her patient in a psychiatric hospital visited his office, as a then Commissioner of Police, to complain of a case, saw the patient in Police uniform, brandishing a Police rifle and became frightened and tensed, Osayande said he didn’t know the person in whose hands his security was, is a mentally deranged patient.


(2011-8-18/vanguardngr.com)