President Buhari, Min Aregbesola, IGP Baba, CP Odumosu, Secretary Blinken Watch This:
Seyi Awobola, in a significant way represents the recent face of human rights issues in Nigeria like unlawful or arbitrary detentions.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, President Muhammadu Buhari, Minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola, Inspector General of Police Usman Alkali Baba, and the Lagos State Commissioner of Police, Hakeem Odumosu; watching and listening to Seyi Awobola on this video, specifically reminds us that justice and rule of law remains almost nil in the Nigeria criminal justice system.
For almost 14 months in prison, Awobola was illegally detained in prison, after been picked up during the periods of #EndSARS protests October 20/21, 2020.
As a result of the legacy of authoritarian behaviors, the police continue to commit with impunity a wide range of human rights violations as this victim narrated.
During a press conference, according to his lawyer and former chair of the Nigerian Bar Association, Ikeja branch Adeshina Ogunlana, asserted that the Nigerian government had no regard for equity.
Seyi Awobola narrated how he was kept in police custody and prison, or so-called Corrections center which Awobola tagged as “corruptional centers.”
Awobola said, he was illegally picked up and arrested while he was coming from the Lekki tollbooth on October 21, 2020, in the company of a friend.
Only to be charged with arson, riot, and disobedience to legal order – curfew.
For him to attend the court there were times when the prison officials said they did not have a van to take him to court.
As an awaiting trial inmate in prison, he recalled the food that they served in the prison would never be accepted by animals. “My family was feeding me.” There are times when there are “No food, no water, no means of communication.”
He recalled how during his initial arrest in the heat of the #EndSARS protests, the Lagos State Commissioner of Police, upon evaluating the case asked that he and others be released but on getting to the station, the junior officers did not comply.
He and his lawyer recalled a major ignorance on the part of prison officials. “We went to prison…prison said no, we can’t release him, he had a matter in the high court. I (his lawyer) said he was never arraigned before the high court, they said no.”
Under these inhuman conditions, with facilities that are overcrowded filled with mostly “awaiting trial “persons, in archaic accommodations, why will the occurrence of jailbreaks subside?
His road to release was partly fueled by the power of the social media: ‘’I am happy today that I have been released…I made video while in detention to let the authority know people were truly arrested”.
The Nigeria government must clean the criminal justice system from arbitrary arrest and punishment, bondage, and widespread lawlessness that manifests itself in fundamental human rights violations of the citizens.
John Egbeazien Oshodi who was born in Uromi, Edo State in Nigeria, is an American based Police/Prison Scientist and Forensic/Clinical/Legal Psychologist. A government Consultant on matters of forensic-clinical adult/child psychological services in the USA; Chief Educator and Clinician at the Transatlantic Enrichment and Refresher Institute, an Online Lifelong Center for Personal, Professional and Career Development. A former Interim Associate Dean/Assistant Professor at the Broward College, Florida. The Founder of the Dr. John Egbeazien Oshodi Foundation, Center for Psychological Health and Behavioral Change in African settings. In 2011, he introduced the State-of-the-Art Forensic Psychology into Nigeria through N.U.C and the Nasarawa State University where he served in the Department of Psychology as an Associate Professor. The Development Professor and International Liaison Consultant at the African University of Benin, and a Virtual Faculty at the ISCOM University, Benin of Republic. Founder of the Proposed Transatlantic Egbeazien University (TEU) of Values and Ethics, a digital project of Truth, Ethics, Openness. Author of over 40 academic publications/creations, at least 200 public opinion writeups on African issues, and various books.
John Egbeazien Oshodi wrote in via transeuniversity@gmail.com
