PWDs lament non-inclusion in commissions
More ORE judicial commissions of inquiry into allegations of police abuses are springing up from various states of the federation.
Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State yesterday inaugurated a panel drawn from civil society, professional groups, youths, religious groups, and women groups.
The nine-man panel is chaired by Justice C.I. Ururi (rtd.), a respected jurist in Port Harcourt. On how the #EndSARS protests bolstered the agitations of state policing, human rights lawyer, Angus Chukwuka, said they showed that people were dissatisfied with the Nigerian police.
In Enugu State, Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi constituted a nine-member Administrative Panel of Inquiry to look into the recent loss of lives and/or grievous bodily injuries to private citizens and security personnel, resulting from the hijack by miscreants of the otherwise peaceful #EndSARS protests.
The panel will also look into the related destruction of properties, including security infrastructure in Enugu. According to the Secretary to the State Government (SSG), Prof. Simon Ortuanya, the panel was constituted by Ugwuanyi, pursuant to Executive Order No. 04 of 2020, on October 27, 2020.
Justice Fredrick Obieze (rtd.) will chair the panel, to be inaugurated today at the Government House, Enugu. Bauchi State Government also set up a panel as part of the requests of the #EndSARS protesters in the state.
Governor Bala Mohammed’s media aide, Mukhtar Gidado, stated that the 17-man panel would work to prevent the recurring highhandedness and brutality by the police.
The Bauchi panel, which is headed by a retired High Court Judge, Justice Habibu Idris, has representatives of National Human Right Commission (NHRC), Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ), lawyers, religious and trade groups, among others.
BUT the Centre for Citizens with Disabilities (CCD) is worried that none of its members was included in the committees set up either at the state or federal level to look into series of atrocities committed by SARS before its disbandment.
CCD Executive Director, David Anyaele, in a statement in Abuja yesterday, wondered why the people mostly affected would be left out of the panels. He noted that the population of persons with disabilities has consistently increased as a result SARS operations.
“Unfortunately, many people suffered disability during the protests as a result of excessive use of force by the security operatives,” he added.
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