Lawyer Decries Extra-Judicial Killings

A Port Harcourt
based attorney and human rights crusader, Barr Chijioke Agi, has condemned what he described as a rise in extra-judicial killings across the Nigerian nation-state.
Barrister Agi, who made the condemnation while speaking with The Tide in Port Harcourt at the weekend, expressed regrets that the rule of law was relegated to the background.
He stated that the high incidence of extra judicial killing was an affront to the rule of law especially in a democratic rule.
He explained that the killing of a suspect in a custody under any guise was a blatant violation of the very essence of constitutional democracy.
Barr Agi noted that some law enforcement agents had gained notoriety for extra-judicial killings.
The Port Harcourt based attorney however, attributed the rise in extra-judicial killing to the rise in crimes.
He said crime prevention and fighting would receive a boost if culprits were caught alive and investigated.
He said if death of suspects occurred in prison custodies, caroner’s inquest had to be undertaken to foreclose law enforcement officers from taking the law into their hands.
Barr Agi said there were allegations that suspects in police cells were often killed to prevent them from having access to the law.
According to him, “there is a presumption by the law that an accused is innocent until proven guilty by a court of law. But what we find reality is that the law enforcement agents presume the accused persons guilty. It is nonetheless a miscarriage of justice”.
“Sometimes, the accused persons are denied the right to his lawyer. These things happen by the day but nobody seems to bother”, he added.
He blamed relatives of accused persons who were murdered extra-judicially for doing nothing and pointed out that it was the reason for rise.
Barr Agi said that he would continue to preach the rule of law until everybody obeyed the law.

Chidi Enyie