The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Sylvester Uhaa

  • Human Right Group kicks against secret detention by Security Agents.

    As the world marks the International Day of the Disappeared, a justice reforms and human rights organization, Citizens United for the Rehabilitation of Errants, (CURE-Nigeria), has urged security agencies in the country to stop secret detention and imprisonment of all categories of suspects; as such practices contravene international human rights law and international humanitarian law.

    The organization also advocated for the closure of all secret cells in the country.

    In a statement signed by the Executive Director of the organization, Mr. Sylvester Uhaa and made available to The Nation, the organization lamented that, “secret detention facilities are not only illegal, but they are also places of massive human rights violations and harsh conditions because they are out of public scrutiny, and the suspects therein are at the mercy of their jailers, who show them no mercy. Such facilities should not be allowed to exist in our society.

    “In addition, we call on all arresting agencies to respect the basic legal provisions in our domestic and international law that mandate law enforcement to assist suspects to contact their families or legal counsel at the point of arrest at all times.

    Read Also: Nigeria: The myth called human rights

    “This will afford families of suspects the opportunity to know the where about of their loved ones, the reasons for their arrest, and enable them to mobilize the needed support for their loved ones to access justice. Families of suspects have the right to know the fate of their loved ones in detention, and this right must be respected.

    “The common practice where law enforcement deny suspects their rights to contact their families or legal counsel at the time of arrest is illegal, wicked and barbaric, and gives plenty of room for torture, extortion, prolonged detention without trial, abuse of power and lack of accountability to occur, with impunity.

    “Finally, we renew our call on the Federal Government to direct all detaining authorities, particularly, the Police to declare the number of people in their detention facilities, as a first critical step in opening up these places to public scrutiny and accountability.

    “A situation where no one knows the number of detainees in the Police, NDLEA, FSARS and military detention camps, is bad and gives a signal that we do not care about the suspects in these facilities.”

  • SARS overhaul: Group makes case for detainees, hails Osinbajo

    A human rights group, Citizens Unite for Rehabilitation of Errants (CURE-Nigeria) has tasked the Nigeria police force to declare the number of detainees being held by the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS)  to the public.

    The group which hailed the Acting President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo,  for directing the Inspector General of Police, Mr. Ibrahim Idris to overhaul SARS, also demanded that all detainees and awaiting trials in the police cells and prisons across the country be charged to court to seek justice.

    CURE-Nigeria passionately appealed to the Federal Government to ensure that police carry out the action.

    In a statement made available to The Nation,  the organization’s Executive Director, Mr. Sylvester Uhaa, noted that the Acting President’s  directive, “although belated, is a welcome development and a right step in the reformation of the Police,” adding that,  “SARS has been identified with human rights violation and abuse of power, which has overshadowed its good work.”

    Uhaa, however, pointed out that, “although SARS has contributed tremendously to the fight against violent crimes and criminality, and to the maintenance of law and order, it has operated largely outside the law, earning a bad name for itself, the Nigeria Police Force, and Nigeria at large.

    Read Also: How to stop SARS’ brutality, by Falana

    “The operations of any law enforcement must be guided by the law that created it, not by lawlessness, arbitrariness and disregard for human rights, which has guided SARS operations since its creation. And we cannot allow this to continue.

    “But, we ask the Federal Government  to take a step further to direct SARS to charge all suspects in their detention camps to court so that suspects can have access to justice and fair trial and this may lead to some gaining freedom, as some of the suspects may be innocent of the alleged offences.”

    He further stated that,  “In addition, the Federal Government should direct the IGP and all detaining authorities to declare the number of people in their detention so that Nigeria will know the number of people in their detention facilities.

    “For now, we only know the number of people in prison, and this is not right. Suspects in police cells are left at the mercy of their captors and jailers, some of whom treat them like animals.

    “Finally, we demand that the current administration  make use of the recommendations made by Federal Government Committees on prison congestion in the past to decongest the prisons.

    “The continued detention of people without trial for years in our police cells and prisons violates the basic fundamental human rights to fair trial, equality of all human beings under the law and the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, and international human rights law.”

  • NGO advocates for creation of state police, prison

    NGO advocates for creation of state police, prison

    Citizens United for the Rehabilitation of Errants (CURE-Nigeria), a human rights and justice reform NGO, has called for the creation of state police and prisons in the country.

    Mr Sylvester Uhaa, the Executive Director of the organisation made the call in an interview with the Reporter on Wednesday in Abuja.

    He said the call was in support of the recommendation of the All Progressives Congress (APC) panel on restructuring led by Gov. Ahmed El-Rufai of Kaduna State on devolution of powers to states.

    Uhaa said the creation of state police and prisons would help to strengthen the security situation of the country, particularly now that the country was undergoing security threats.

    ”We support state police because we believe it will lead to better performance of the police and to a more accountable, lawful and responsible force, to increase security and protection of lives and property.

    ”Experiences from the recent events around the country point to the reality that the current federal police is deficient and incapable of maintaining law and order and guarantee the protection of lives and property in Nigeria,” he said.

    According to him, the situation is similar with that of the prisons since the majority of the prison inmates in states are  indigenes of those states.

    Read Also: 2019: NGOs  back Buhari as Obasanjo’s coalition lands

    He said most of the prison inmates in states were in the prison for breach or alleged violation of the state offences.

    The executive director said state governments had shown little or no interest in the prison reforms which had resulted to the deteriorating conditions of prisons in the country.

    “For example, 98 per cent of inmates in the Medium Security Prison, Makurdi are indigenes of Benue but the state does little to achieve prison reform which is true of other states across the country,’’ he said.

    Uhaa said creation of state prisons would impose an obligation on the states to reform the criminal justice system and would ensure that the police did their work efficiently.

    He said that this would allow the judiciary to perform optimally where innocent persons would not be held in the prison for years without trial.

    According to him, no state will want to spend it resources feeding innocent people in the prison, who should have been feeding themselves, adding value to the society and economic growth of the state.

    NAN

  • Group faults FG’s plan to build more prisons

    Group faults FG’s plan to build more prisons

    …Seek eradication of causes of congestion

     

    A group, Citizens United for the Rehabilitation of Errants (CURE-Nigeria) has faulted plan by the Federal Government to build new prisons to address congestion and decapitated prison structures.

    It argued that such option was wrong where everyone, including the Interior Minister, Abdulrahman Dambazau know that majority of those in existing prisons were awaiting trial inmates, kept behind bars owing to the inability of the criminal justice system to promptly process their cases.

    In a statement Monday, CURE-Nigeria’s Executive Director, Sylvester Uhaa commended the Minister for visiting the Kano prison during the the Eid-el-Fitr and the Kano State Government for donating a large piece of land for the building of a 3,000 capacity prison.

    Uhaa said though he is aware that majority of the country’s prisons are old and debilitated and the building of modern prisons is necessary, prison decongestion and justice reforms should precede the building of new prisons, not to do so will be a huge mistake to make.

    Uhaa said: “We cannot decongest the prisons by simply building new prisons.

    “We should decongest the prisons my ensuring that only those who are convicted are sent to prison to serve their jail terms, reduce the over reliance on incarceration as the only form of punishment and by reforming the criminal justice system.

    “It is only then that it will make sense to build new prisons.

    “If we build new prisons now without first addressing the root causes of the rising crime rate in Nigeria addressing the failure of the criminal justice system to process and send to prisons only those who are found guilty of crimes, we will still fill up the new prisons with people awaiting trial, most of whom are innocent.

    “This is why we have always been against the construction of new prisons at this moment, and I call on the FG to put off the plans to build new prisons until it is the right time to do so.

    “But, if the FG must go ahead with the building of new prisons, we advise that the new prisons should be the same capacity as the old prisons and that the new prisons should replace the old prisons, not add to them to avoid prison expansion and mass incarceration.

    “It sounds strange, though that at a time countries around the world are closing down their prisons, Nigeria is planning to build new prisons when 70% of prisoners are awaiting trial.

    “What we should be doing now is investing our scarce and limited resources in creating jobs and reviving our educational system, building infrastructure, fighting poverty, not building prisons,” Uhaa said.

    CURE-Nigeria had, in 2012 launched a campaign against the planned construction of prisons across the country, and wrote a letter to then President Goodluck Jonathan on the matter.

     

  • INEC must comply with ruling on prisoners’ voting right – Group

    …Writes AGF, NHRC, Interior minister, others

    The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has been asked to urgently take steps to prepare prison inmates across the country for participation in the next general elections in line with a subsisting judgment of the Federal High Court, Benin Division.

    The court while delivering judgment in the case filed by Victor Omonuwe and four others, in suit No: FHC/B/CS/12/2014, upheld prison inmates’ right to vote and directed the relevant agencies to take steps to ensure prisoners in the country enjoy such right.

    A criminal justice and prison reforms group – Citizens United for the Rehabilitation of Errants – Nigeria (CURE-Nigeria) made this call in a letter to INEC, dated July 11, 2016.

    It noted that over two years after the judgment, which was not appealed, the electoral body has refused to comply with it.

    Copies of the letter signed by CURE-Nigeria’s Executive Director, Sylvester Uhaa, were sent to the Attorney- General of the Federation (AGF) and Minister of Justice, Minister of Interior, Controller-General of the Nigerian Prisons Service, Executive Secretary, National Human Rights Commission and committees on Judiciary, human rights and legal matters in both the Senate and House of Representatives.

    Uhaa, who said his group had written INEC on the issue on July 28 last year, said the new letter was a reminder that the electoral body was under obligation to comply with a subsisting court judgment and ensure that the right of Nigerians to vote was not violated.

    “Consequently, we urge the commission, as we did in our previous letter, to take steps to register inmates in all the prisons across the country ahead of the 2019 general elections.

    “Voting by prison inmates, besides being their rights, has a tremendous rehabilitation and re-entry value, and we hope that Nigeria will join many countries such as South Africa, Ghana, Kenya and others to restore the right to vote to people in prison,” Uhaa said.