The Federal Government has been charged to name, shame and prosecute the indicted police operatives who masterminded the extra-judicial murder and dumping of 19 persons in Ezu River, in Anambra state, to save Nigeria from impunity and lawlessness.
A democracy inclined Non-Governmental organization-HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS’ ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA (HURIWA) in a statement by the National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko and the National Director of Media Affairs, Miss Zainab Yusuf, also tasked the senate joint committee on Police Affairs, National security and intelligence, which probed the scandal surrounding the floating of scores of corpses in Ezu River, Anambra state in January this year, to publicly present the report of its findings on the alleged mass murder of persons suspected to be members of the Anambra branch of the Movement for the Actualization of the state of Biafra (MASSOB).
Citing section 33(1) of the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria of 1999 (as amended) which provides that “every person has a right to life, and no one shall be deprived intentionally of his life, save in execution of the sentence of a court in respect of a criminal offence of which he has been found guilty in Nigeria”, HURIWA said the Nigerian government has constitutional obligation to transparently prosecute the police officers responsible for this “appalling”, “gruesome”, and “dastardly criminal acts” of extra-legal execution of the scores of Nigerians whose corpses were found in the Ezu River and now confirmed by pathologists, to be victims of gunshots wounds who died through extra-legal executions.
HURIWA Stated thus; “Now that all empirical evidences gathered by experts have pointed validly to police extra judicial mass murders of scores of persons whose corpses were found floating in the Ezu River in Anambra State, the police operatives so responsible for these crimes against humanity must be identified, prosecuted not by police authority but by the Anambra state office of Directorate of public prosecution and punished by the competent court of law. The Nigerian government must be seen to have adopted transparent and clearly verifiable process and mechanism to ensure that Justice is done in this instance so as to bring to a closure this shameful act of genocide”.
HURIWA specifically observed that the media has reported that the senate joint committee on police affairs, national security and intelligence, which was saddled with the task of uncovering the mystery behind the discovery of scores of corpses in the Ezu River in Anambra State, has found out that the victims were extra-judicially executed.
