A human rights activist, Professor Chidi Odinkalu, has raised serious concerns over what he described as a worrisome recurring pattern where prosecution of police officers found culpable in cases of extrajudicial killings, brutality, assault and other sharp practices are administratively frustrated by authorities.
Odinkalu was reacting to a video she reposted on his official X handle about the case of Mene Ogidi, the young man extrajudicially killed in Effurum, Delta State, by a police officer, ASP Nuhu Usman, otherwise known as ‘Ogbegbe’.
Recall that the Inspector-General of Police, IGP Tunji Disu had announced the dismissal of the said officer, ASP Usman, who was caught on a video shooting the victim in the full glare of people. The IGP also announced that the officer will be prosecuted according to the law.
The viral video, reposted by Odinkalu showed a list of the 1,332 police officers transferred from Delta State to other parts of the country by the Inspector-General of Police, Tunji Disu, due to reports of rights violations and other forms of corrupt practices.
Surprisingly, despite the pronouncement by the IGP that ASP Usman has been dismissed from the police force and is awaiting prosecution, his name appeared as the 976th on the list, transferred on the 3rd of May to Imo State.
The unidentified narrator in the video had alleged that the police authorities are culpable in the whole ugly incident, claiming that the rogue officer has godfathers who provide him protection for the atrocities he commits within the force.
Reacting, Odinkalu, a former Chairman of the National Human Rights Commission, NHRC, expressed concerns that nothing has changed about the operations of the Nigeria Police Force, especially as it concerns handling cases of misconduct involving its operatives.
He alleged that the practice has always been to transfer officers involved in misconduct so as to frustrate prosecution, expressing worry that the same IGP who announced the dismissal of ASP Usman was the same person who approved his transfer to Imo State.
“The Police is the oldest institution in Nigeria. It does not change. Its colonial role was the liquidation of expendable Nigerians. At independence, it was already 100 years and it has been unreformable since then. It does not change.
“The standard practice in the police is to transfer their killers from one command to another and get them lost in the system. It does not change. So, IGP directed the prosecution of the police murderer, Nuhu Usman. The same IGP has now surreptitiously transferred the same murderer out of Delta State? It does not change.
“The goal is very simple: frustrate prosecution. When it is time for the arraignment, he will be missing or impossible to find. It does not change!” Odinkalu wrote.
