SIR: On April 24, a popular on-line news medium exclusively reported that 10 counter-terrorism police officers attached to the Nigeria army peacekeeping Forward Operation Base(FOB) in Abuja were detained at a military barrack in Gwagwalada, Abuja for refusing to wear military fatigues for an operation they feared could be illegal.
According to the medium, they were detained on the instruction of one Colonel Kalejaye, head of the army forward operation base, because they refused his directive to “impersonate” soldiers by wearing their uniforms for training in Jaji, Kaduna State.
The Committee for Democracy and Rights of the People (CDRP) consider the detainees first as citizens before they enlisted as policemen in the service of their fatherland. We condemn the detention which we deem as unlawful, unwarranted and totally unacceptable.
When we contacted the Force Public Relations Officer, Emmanuel Ojukwu on the matter, he questioned our audacity to dabble into security matters even when we raised our concerns over the administrative lacunae their deployment without proper clearance may cause for the Nigeria Police. He later promised to investigate after our persistence.
However, the request for your intervention is necessary as all our efforts to free the detainees have not been fruitful and our independent investigations have since revealed that the detained officers are still in an army cell somewhere in Gwagwalada under conditions that we consider as inhuman and filty.
It is easy to secure the popular minority elite, but if our nation’s security establishment must operate according to international best practices, we must strive to protect, defend and patriotically respect the rights of our rank and file sworn to defend the green, white and green flag of our country against any internal uprising.
We therefore demand your intervention to ensure immediate and unconditional release of the detained officers; security synergy among military and paramilitary agency for effective security, and, an inquiry into the controversial deployment
Finally, we equally hope unnecessary institutional rivalry among security agencies will be properly addressed and necessary reform for implementation done for the good of our national security.
- Comrade Waheed Saka
Ag. National Coordinator, CDRP, Nigeria.