The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Prof. Bem Angwe

  • NHRC threatens to shut oil companies over pollution

    The National Human Rights‎ Commission (NHRC) has threatened to shut oil companies whose activities negatively affect the environment and residents of their host communities.

    NHRC’s Executive Secretary, Prof. Bem Angwe, said this after‎ inaugurating an investigative panel on the complaints by some host communities on environmental pollution caused by activities of oil companies on Monday.

    He regretted that past reports produced by various government regulatory ‎agencies and institutions were ignored by the affected companies.

    Angwe said his agency had earlier raised a team which undertook an on-the-spot assessment of the affected areas.

    He assured that the era of impunity is over as the commission would ensure that its own report is fully implemented.

    “We will not allow this impunity to continue. So we have decided to carry our special investigations into the activities.

    “After this, we will take the report to the Federal Government of Nigeria and in line with our mandate, we will ensure that these report is implemented to the letter.

    “Like we have said, this commission will not hesitate to shut down oil companies that today violate the rights of the people of Nigeria.”

    On whether the NHRC possesses the power to shut the erring companies, Angwe said it was part of the mandate of the NHRC to investigate all issues bordering on rights of Nigerians.

     

     

  • NHRC seeks U.S assistance on money laundering, arms import

    The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has sought the assistance of the United States government in halting money laundering and illegal importation of arms and ammunitions into the country.

    NHRC’s Executive Secretary, Prof. Bem Angwe, said this while a 10-member U.S delegation on defense and security visited him in his office in Abuja, Tuesday.

    Angwe said “economic terrorists” and the activities of Boko Haram were the nation’s major challenges.

    He said those who stashed away stolen public funds in foreign bank accounts belong to the class of “economic terrorists” that the U.S government must assist Nigeria to defeat.

    Angwe regretted that most European countries, that readily accept stolen funds from Nigeria, were aiding people in looting funds that could have been used to improve dying infrastructures in the country.

     

  • NHRC threatens to prosecute varsity officials over students’ torturing

    The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has said it will prosecute the vice chancellor of Madonna University and two other senior officials of the institution over alleged torturing of students accused of involvement in cultism.

    NHRC’s Executive Secretary, Prof. Bem Angwe, said on Wednesday that his commission will be compelled to prosecute the institution’s officials should they fail to honour a fresh invitation to appear before the commission.

    The commission on August 10 invited the Madonna University officials and the Nigerian Army authorities over two separate incidents of torture.

    While the Army was invited over the inhuman treatment meted out to a civilian in Nyanaya, Abuja, recently by a soldier, and requested that the culprit be identified, the university officials were invited over the torture of two students, Stanley Okoye, a 23-year old final year Civil Engineering student and Ga-Lim Aondofa Lord.

    Prof Angwe, who spoke in Abuja after receiving a team from the Nigerian Army, said the vice chancellor of Madonna University has refused to appear on the excuse that the matter is in court and that the commission should allow the court to handle it.

    “The victims and their parents were here on Tuesday, but the vice chancellor and the two other officials did not come. We also received a letter from the vice chancellor, who said the matter is in court and that for that reason, he is of the opinion that the Human Rights Commission should allow the court to determine the case.

    “We are not satisfied with that. It is not for the vice chancellor to sit there in his office and write us a letter that the matter is in court. They (the VC and two other senior officials of the university) need to appear.

    “We have given them a new date to appear here on the 25th of this month. And if by that date the vice chancellor and two other officials of the university are not here, we will commence their prosecution immediately.”

  • Rights commission, groups seek alternative to death penalty

    The Nigerian government has been asked to review its stand on the issue of death penalty for capital offences.

    The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) and some Civil Society Organisations (CSO) made the call in Abuja on Thursday at an event held to mark this year’s World Day Against Death Penalty.

    Speakers at the event queried the rationality for sustaining the death sentence in the nation’s statute book, in the face of a defective justice administration system and poor investigation by the police.

    They urged the government to sustain the existing moratorium on death penalty if it was yet to device an alternative means of punishing people convicted for capital offences.

    The event was jointly organised by the NHRC, Lawyers Without Borders – Avocats Sans Frontieres (ASF) and Access to Justice.

    The Executive Secretary, NHRC, Prof. Bem Angwe, contended that since the nation’s Constitution guaranteed the right to life, the pronouncement of death penalty on offenders should be placed under review.

    Angwe, who was represented by an officer of his commission, Murphy Okwa, suggested a review of the law on death penalty on a case-to-case basis.

    “That is, in the case of an armed robbery that does not result in death, the state should consider the use of other sentencing in place of death penalty.”

    “This is given the fact that the criminal justice system has flaws, which need to be amended,” he said.

    Head of Office, ASF, Angela Uwandu, faulted the practice of sentencing people to death for offences committed as minors.

    She said her organsation has sued the Nigerian government at the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Court in relation to the case of a nursing mother, Maimuna Abdulmumini sentenced to death by a High Court in Katsina State for the murder offence she committed while she was 13 years.

    Uwandu, who noted that Maimuna was currently imprisoned with her baby, noted that 69 of such babies, incarcerated with their mothers, are currently in the nation’s prisons.

    She urged the Federal Government to initiate measures to improve the living condition of people on death row in the nation’s prison.