Group reveals the two major reasons insecurity parades Nigeria

 

As part of efforts to curb the security challenges bedevilling the country, the government has been urged to recruit more security personnel to help in the fight against insecurity.

The call was made in Lagos at a stakeholders roundtable meeting organised by Avocats SANs Frontiers France otherwise known as Lawyers Without Borders ‘SAFE’ Project.

Participants lamented that Nigeria’s total security statistics of less than 450,000 personnel guarding about 200 million people were grossly inadequate and could not guarantee efficient security architecture and protection of human rights.

Mrs Angela Uwandu, head of office ASF France in Nigeria, said that the SAFE project falls within the context of human rights violations including torture, extrajudicial killings and arbitrary detentions by security agencies in the country.

She said the prevalence of human rights violations in the country, especially with regard to frequent cases of arbitrary arrest and detention by security agencies. was one of the reasons for organising the event.

Uwandu said ” We believe firmly that the issues of human rights violations need to be tackled; they cannot be condoned. That is why the project is being carried out in Lagos, Enugu and Kaduna States. These are issues that bother not just on the Constitution, but on various International standards”.

According to her, the nation’s justice system is understaffed and riddled with delays.

Our correctional facilities are overcrowded with the majority of inmates being pre-trial detainees, some held for many years without trial. The judicial system is highly defective especially due to impunity and disrespect of fundamental principles for a fair trial,” Uwandu said.

She expressed hope that the event would provide a template for how to hold rights violators accountable.

Uwandu said: “The essence of having all the security agencies, civil society, Human Rights Commission, legal aid counsel, the media and even the Nigeria Bar Association, is to see how we can collaborate to ensure that incidents of human rights abuses become minimal in Lagos state.

“When they occur we have to ensure that the perpetrators are held accountable, where there is no accountability, the impunity with which the human rights violations are perpetrated in Nigeria will continue”.

“We need to implement the existing law such as the Anti-Torture Act of 2017, to ensure that the perpetrators are prosecuted under the extant law”.

According to her, between 2019 to 2021, when the SAFE project started, in Kaduna, Enugu and Lagos, it had handled 70 cases of victims of torture, arbitrary detention and persons who would have been extrajudicially killed in the three states where the project is being implemented.

“So they are being offered free legal assistance on the project. We are doing it on a pro-bono basis. In Lagos alone, about three people have been released and 24 other cases are ongoing in various High Courts and the Federal High Court in Lagos.