By Awunah Pius Terwase

As a human rights activist and public affairs vommentator, I have seen it as my duty and responsibility to fight human rights abuses and also condemn issues of injustice with other abnormalities via my newspaper publications to attract the attention of the concerned authorities with hope to get justice and right the wrongs. My experience with the police has been very bad since they see cases reported to them as opportunities to make wealth from them.

I must thank God for the success made so far as we all know how difficult and expensive it is to get justice in this country. Recently, I was at the Force Headquarters in Abuja in respect to my complaint against one Sergeant Lorember Ade who towards the end of 2016, assaulted my sister, Queen and that led to her death. This same issue was reported to the National Human Rights Office in Abuja, but nothing reasonable was done to ensure that justice is served.

While at the Force Headquarters, the IPO of my case, who refused to disclose his real name to me, but said I can be addressing him as IK, had a serious argument with his colleagues on who should handle my case. One of them complained he has not been getting money aside his salary, and that he won’t continue to allow IK take over cases that come to their unit. I was shocked that they could not even mind my presence. The argument lasted for almost an hour before I was attended to by Mr. IK.

While attending to me, IK made some funny requests that I will pay for the hotel accommodation for two police officers that will be going to Makurdi, Benue State capital to investigate my case since the incident took place there. He also demanded that I will pay for their transport fare and their feeding as well. Thereafter, he asked me how much do I think I can give to cover all that he mentioned?

I was not surprised because I knew he saw my case as an opportunity for him to make money and add to his salary. To make it brief, I told him I don’t have money, and that was the end of my case. I have not heard from the police since then. I reported this attitude to the National Human Rights Office in Abuja, who claimed to be following my case to ensure I get justice, but as usual, nothing was done till now.

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How can we progress in this country with the kind of police we have? How can we get things done with the kind of government agencies that are not functioning? Human rights are existing only by name, and so other agencies of government because they are not doing anything reasonable, but they collect money from the government.

Sometimes in a day, I get not less than 10 calls from people in different parts of the country, reporting issues to me after reading my publications in the national newspaper on similar issues that have been their problems.

If these agencies of government are working, can people be calling an ordinary person to report cases to him? A staff of FCMB, came to me to assist recover his money from a Police Inspector after the police claimed they don’t know the whereabouts of the Inspector, and they won’t be able to follow him up and recover the money from him. The phone number of the Inspector and other details about him were provided, yet, police did not know how to follow up on this case. I collected the phone number of the officer in question and spoke with him. Within two weeks, he paid the money in question (₦50,000) to the staff of FCMB, Mr. Matthew Nyoir. What was difficult about this case that police were not able to handle, but was successfully resolved by an ordinary person like me?

It is my hope and believe that the new Police IG, will read this and do something to address the issues raised. Also, the National Human Rights Commission and other agencies of government that are not working should please, begin to work or have them scrapped since their existence is not useful.

• Terwase writes from Mpape, Abuja

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