By Onyewuchi Ojinnaka
The human rights abuses/violations by the Nigeria Police was brought to the fore on Thursday, December 17 before the Independent Investigative Panel (IIP) on alleged police human rights violations sitting in Abuja, as an Abuja resident Jane Gana narrated how she was unlawfully detained at Asokoro police station and forced to sit on her menstrual blood during.
Jane, accompanied by her mother to the panel sitting at National Human Rights Commission building, claimed that she was arrested when she went to the police station to lodge a complaint against someone who stole from her. She said that instead, she was arrested.
“I suffered arbitrary arrest and unlawful detention, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment from the police,” she said.
The respondents in her petition are : Mohammed (IPO) Asokoro Police Station; Superintendent of Police(SP), Kene Amaobi; SP Danjuma; Commissioner of Police FCT, and the Inspector General of Police.
Jane told the panel that she had reported one Mr. Victor Ejiofor to the police station for stealing her belongings but was astonished when men of the FCT police command later came to her house in company of Ejiofor and took her to the station.
When she asked the police what her offense was, they told her she had threatened the life of Ejiofor.
She claimed that she was maltreated at the Asokoro police station where they detained her, stressing that when her monthly period came, the police did not help her.
According to Jane, “Danjuma and Mohammed said they will detain me at Asokoro police station. In the detention form, they said I should not receive phone calls or visitors.
“I was there for 10 days, the president of the detention beat me up and tortured me.
“My mother had someone to bail me but they refused; my period started, I was messed up, I was smelling and had fever,” she told the panel.
During cross-examination, counsel for the respondents, Fidelis Ogboegbe, prayed the panel to summon the officers to come and defend themselves.
A member of the panel chaired by Justice Suleiman Galadima (rtd) asked Mr. Fidelis what the police was expected to do when a female detainee was menstruating or seeing her period.
Fidelis responded: “My Lords, what I can say is that in such issues, they provide sanitary pads to the detainees.”
Ms Gana disclosed that it was the Magistrate Court 5 at Zone 6 where they had dragged her that ordered the police to release her.
Justice Galadima thereafter adjourned to March 2, 2021, for “respondents to open their defence.”