Former Vice President, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, has decried rise in human rights abuses in Nigeria under President Bola Tinubu-led Federal Government, saying citizens were arrested in a gestapo manner without the knowledge of their relatives who go about looking for them for several weeks.....KINDLY READ THE FULL STORY HERE▶
Atiku in a statement issued by his Special Assistant on Public Communications, Phrank Shaibu, regretted that the most affected were journalists whose only crime was reporting the news and exposing government indiscretion.
“The dangerous trend of enforced disappearances has become a national embarrassment for a country which claimed to be practising democracy,” he stated.
Atiku who was a two-term People’s Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate, said the defunct Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) that led to nationwide protest in 2020, has now be resurrected in the newly created Nigeria Police Force National Cybercrime Centre (NPF-NCCC).
He added that the Cyber Crime Prevention Act 2015 has now become a tool with which officials in the Tinubu administration use to abduct citizens and keep them out of circulation.
The former Vice President said the arrest and release of the former BBC Pidgin Editor who is now West Africa Regional Editor of the Conversation, Adejuwon Soyinka, “clearly shows a pattern, of the administration, “which objective is to intimidate journalists for speaking truth to this government.
“Now, the police have arrested Bristol Tamunobiefiri, who owns the PIDOM Nigeria blog on X, formerly Twitter.
“After detaining him for over two weeks, he was granted an administrative bail, which will be impossible to meet.
“This is despite the fact that the Appeal Court, in the case of EFCC V. Emem Uboh (2022) LPEIR – 57968 (CA) held that administrative bail is illegal.
“Bristol should, therefore, be arraigned in court immediately or released.”
He regretted that Tinubu who rode to power over claims of being a freedom fighter, had turned against the people by allowing the Department of State Services (DSS), police and even the military to abuse the rights of citizens without any consequences.
Atiku advised Tinubu to take cases of human rights abuses seriously, and warned that Nigeria would risk being sanctioned for human rights abuse.
This, he said, could lead to denial of weapons by western nations to fight insurgency in the country.
“Amnesty International still has a pending petition before the Foreign Committee of the US Congress against the sale of weapons to Nigeria due to human rights concerns in line with the Leahy Law.
“Tinubu would do well to curb these cases of rights abuses by law enforcement authorities who all report to him as commander-in-chief,” the former vice president appealed.