{"id":2915,"date":"2022-09-30T13:17:32","date_gmt":"2022-09-30T13:17:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/?p=2915"},"modified":"2022-09-30T13:17:35","modified_gmt":"2022-09-30T13:17:35","slug":"abuja-endsars-panel-report-revives-concerns-of-police-brutality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/abuja-endsars-panel-report-revives-concerns-of-police-brutality\/","title":{"rendered":"Abuja #EndSARS Panel Report Revives Concerns of Police Brutality"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The independent investigative panel in Abuja set up to look into cases of human rights violations by the Police, following the #EndSARS protest in October 2020, submitted its report to the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) on Tuesday, 27<sup>th<\/sup> September 2022. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The panel\nreceived 295 petitions from 29 States and the FCT, on several issues, including\nthreat to life, abuse of office, non-payment of judgment sums, unlawful arrest\nand detention, among others. Out of the 295 petitions, there were 64 cases of\nextra-judicial killings and 7 cases of enforced disappearance. The panel heard\nand decided on 95 petitions; 54 were struck out for lack of diligent\nprosecution by the petitioners and 57 were referred to the NHRC for further\ninvestigations. However, 54 petitions were withdrawn by complainants for\nseveral reasons, including allegations of intimidation by the Police, while\nsome others resigned to fate. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It will\nbe recalled that a series of protests tagged #EndSARS took place across the\ncountry in October 2020, calling for an end to police brutality perpetrated by\nthe defunct Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) unit of the Nigeria Police. In\nresponse to one of the demands of the protesters, panels were set up in most\nStates of the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), to look into\nallegations of gross violations suffered by citizens at the hands of SARS\npersonnel. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The\nreport of the Abuja #EndSARS investigative panel contained recommendations as\nwell as penalties. The panel found 72 Police officers guilty for the\nallegations levelled against them and recommended 28 for prosecution, 25 for\ndismissal, 15 for disciplinary action and 4 for demotion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Among several recommendations, the panel led by a retired Supreme Court Justice, Suleiman Galadima, urged the National Economic Council to direct the NHRC to harmonise reports from all #EndSARS panels set up across the States, for onward transmission to the Federal Government for implementation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Executive\nSecretary of the NHRC, Anthony Ojukwu expressed the Commission\u2019s commitment to\nwork with all stakeholders including the relevant Committees of the National\nAssembly and civil society to implement the panel\u2019s recommendations for police\nreform.&nbsp; <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Despite\nthe disbandment of SARS, police brutality subsists. There are reports of\nincreasing incidents of harassment and other human rights violations by\npersonnel of the Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT), the unit set up to replace\nSARS. The fears expressed by Nigerians over the purported disbanding of SARS\nappear to be materialising. Indeed, the suspicion that the same individuals who\nwere personnel of the defunct SARS unit were merely given a new name to\ncontinue to deploy their usual tactics of harassment, extortion and arbitrary\narrest and detention of innocent citizens. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Human\nrights violations especially by security agencies continue to rise, with\nvictims often struggling to get justice and, in some cases, unable to afford to\npursue any channels of remedy whatsoever. In other instances, the victims are\nintimidated into silence by the perpetrators. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The independent investigative panel in Abuja set up to look into cases of human rights violations by the Police, following the #EndSARS protest in October 2020, submitted its report to the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) on Tuesday, 27th September 2022. The panel received 295 petitions from 29 States and the FCT, on several issues, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2921,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2915","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2915","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2915"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2915\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2922,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2915\/revisions\/2922"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}