Ikoku Four: Activist Condemns Call For Rivers CP’s Redeployment

A Port Harcourt – based human rights activist- cum lawyer, Mr Emperor Nnaoma, has condemned call for the redeployment of the Rivers State Commissioner of Police, Mr Ahmed Dandaura over the killing of Mr Chima Ikwunado and the torture of four others by the Eagle-Crack Unit of the State’s Police Command.
Nnaoma made this known in an exclusive chat with The Tide yesterday in Port Harcourt.
He said efforts should be geared towards the magnitude of relief Ikwunado’s family and other should get over the killing and brutality meted to them by the police E-Crack Unit.
According to him, the redeployment of the CP was not any kind of relief and could not be of any use to the affected parties.
He maintained that people should concern themselves with the call to regulate the activities of the E-Crack unit as to prevent further occurrence of such heinous act.
The lawyer, said that though, the police had erred,  people must tread with caution, judging from the role the police play in the society.
“We must not throw away the baby with the bath water. We must be cautious of the fact that the police is a major stakeholder in our society in the area of crime fighting”, he said.
He hinted that his personal contact with the police top officers revealed a matured setting and operational maturity, as he blamed the rank and file for most police woes.
The lawyer also lambasted the officers of the E-Crack Unit over the manner in which the confessional statement was obtained.
He explained that any confessional statement obtained  under such maximum duress, was fraudulent and  cannot be tendered as an evidence in the court of law.
The activist who increased the volume of call for the release of Chima’s lifeless body to his family, said adequate compensation must be paid by the police to the affected Ikoku mechanics and their families.
On the arrest and detention of the four police men accused of the ordeal of the mechanics, he said it was a step in the right path, and added that it must go beyond that point.
“The arrest of the police men accused of Mr Ikwunado’s death and alleged torture of the four others, must go beyond arrest and detention. They must be punished in accordance with the law, if found wanting at the end of the day,” he said.