Tag: raid

Perhaps nothing could be more distressful and disheartening than the raid on the Abuja residence of 91-year-old frontline statesman and South-South leader, Chief Edwin Clark, on September 4, by men of the Nigeria Police Force (NPF). At least six men from the Inspector-General of Police’s ‘Special Tactical Force’ conducted a two-hour search of Chief Clark’s residence, ransacking his bedroom, sitting room, toilet as well as those of his wife and children and purportedly acting on information that arms and ammunition had been illegally stocked in the premises.

The police action, however, turned out to be completely misplaced as it yielded nothing incriminating, prompting widespread condemnation of what was no doubt a humiliating and harrowing experience for the residents.

This incident demonstrated, once again, the penchant of the country’s security agencies to violate the very law they are supposed to uphold and defend while routinely abusing the rights of citizens and subjecting them to dehumanising and traumatising treatment. As condemnable as this invasion of a private residence for obviously frivolous reasons is, fallouts from the action offer hopeful signs that the NPF is on the path of reform from a culture of impunity and gross disregard for the dignity of the citizenry.

Hiding behind the pretext of acting in pursuit of what it perceives to be national security interest, the NPF we used to know would have defended the raid. In this case, however, the police authorities, starting from the Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Mr. Ibrahim Idris, not only roundly condemned the raid but insisted it was carried out by lower level officers without the knowledge or authorisation of their superiors. Of course, this sounds implausible but that is beside the point. The critical issue is that the NPF was sufficiently mortified to admit that a serious infraction had been committed by its representatives, with negative implications for its image.

Consequently, the IGP not only dispatched a delegation of top police officers to apologise to Chief Clark, the policemen who carried out the raid were subjected to internal disciplinary processes and their appointments terminated. Furthermore, the Special Tactical Force in the office of the IGP has been disbanded and its men deployed to other units of the force. And evidently to demonstrate that it acted in good faith and without ulterior motives, the police paraded the alleged informant, Mr. Ismail Yakubu, whose false alert led to the raid, before the media. This can certainly not detract from the fact that the greater blame lies with the police, which ought to have the professional acumen to thoroughly appraise the authenticity and credibility of information at its disposal, before acting on such.

We recall that widespread protests against the alleged highhandedness, corruption and abuse of human rights by officers and men of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) have compelled the police to initiate far-reaching reforms in the organisation and operational procedures of the outfit. The raid on Chief Clark’s residence indicates the need for fundamental behavioural re-orientation throughout the NPF. Surely, even if the search on the statesman’s house was necessary, it could still have been carried out in a more civil and professional manner without compromising commitment to firmly detect and thwart any violation of the law.

Beyond this, the police and judicial authorities cannot afford to ignore the calls for an investigation into how the police officers involved in the raid obtained the search warrant that provided legal cover for their action. What convincing facts were presented to the court to issue the search warrant, a document which should not be cavalierly obtained and abused by security agencies?

•DSS’ raid on Akwa Ibom Govt House raises many fundamental questions

Last week’s raid by operatives of the Department of State Security (DSS) on the Presidential Lodge within the Government House Complex in the Akwa Ibom State Capital, Uyo, has set off across the country reactions ranging from outrage to renewed questioning about whether Nigeria is a federation or, for all practical purposes a centrally-administered state pretending to be a federation.

The DSS said it carried out the raid following credible intelligence that the house served as a dump for unlawful weapons. The raid reportedly yielded some arms and Improvised Explosive Devices but, more dramatically, what the operatives called a “stockpile” of U.S. dollars.

In the public imagination, that term conjured up an enclosed space of no small dimension, chock-full of banknotes rising from floor to ceiling. What the pictures reportedly taken from the scene show is less dramatic, but it is troubling that the bundles and bundles of 100 U.S. dollar should lie outside the banking regulations.

Who owns the arms and the money? Who stored them there, and for what purpose? How did they get there? Were they in proper custody?

A detailed investigation will have to be conducted to answer these questions conclusively.

There are even more fundamental questions that should be addressed.

The DSS says the raid was backed by a search warrant. Under what circumstances was the search warrant granted? Did the DSS show probable cause for seeking the warrant? If the answer is in the affirmative, were reasonable alternatives considered as the law requires?

These questions are not academic.

The DSS has often tended to strike first without carrying out the necessary investigation, hoping that a raid would yield evidence on which a successful prosecution could be grounded. In a democratic society, the law takes a dim view of such conduct, regarding it as nothing but    a fishing expedition.

At other times, the DSS has lent its authority to purely partisan exploits, such as when it staged a dramatic raid of questionable legality on the Opposition (as it then was) All Progressives Congress’ (APC) Data Centre in Opebi, Lagos, subjected the operators, including a pregnant woman, to physical abuse, and claimed to have uncovered equipment for cloning voters’ cards that the APC was going to use to rig the impending general election.

Yet, in the face of such apparently damning evidence of electoral skullduggery articulated dramatically at a news conference by DSS spokesperson Marilyn Orgar, since defenestrated from the agency, no prosecutions were brought. The staffers and senior party officials lived under a cloud of suspicion. Perhaps that was the real purpose, to help the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) portray the Opposition as a party sworn to electoral malfeasance.

That misadventure undoubtedly informs the charges now being made that the recent DSS raid on an annex of Government House, in Uyo, seat of power of a government led by the Opposition PDP, may have been instigated by the APC-controlled Federal Government.

The Federal Government cannot dissociate itself too soon or too vehemently from this incident.

The raid has also been characterised as yet another assault on the federal principle. Whether an agency controlled wholly by the Federal Government has or should have the prerogative to launch a raid on a facility or premises of a state governor is a matter yet to be resolved to every party’s satisfaction.

The Federal Government has overall responsibility for security, and the Criminal Code has overriding jurisdiction. But it must exercise its powers mindful of the constitutional imperatives of federalism, even in a defective federation like ours.