HURIWA condemns police attacks of Nnamdi Kanu’s lawyer:

Blaming the Anambra state police commissioner Mr. John Abang over his unguarded and irresponsible statement warning the leader of the proscribed indigenous peoples of Biafra (IPOB) Mr. Nnamdi Kanu not to attend his mother’s burial for the renewed conflict between the police and suspected street urchins in Anambra state, the prominent Rights group – HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA (HURIWA) has demanded his immediate dismissal.

Also, the Rights group has absolutely condemned the persistent physical violence by the police visited on the lawyer to the leader of IPOB Mr. Ifeanyi Ejiofor including the recent invasion of his private residence in his Oraifite hometown which led to the razing down of his housing assets allegedly by the police, the killing allegedly of his relatives just as the group sympathized with the families of all those killed in the riot that ensued including the two police operatives reportedly burnt to death by riotous crowd displeased by the violence unleashed allegedly by the police on the premises of the legal representative of the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB). HURIWA said the invasion of the lawyer's residence was provocative, illegal, despicable and a grave violations of his constitutional rights to privacy.

Canvassing the immediate convocation of the Anambra state’s judicial commission of inquiry on the invasion of the home of the lawyer to IPOB, the alleged killings by police of civilians and the alleged reprisal killing of police by some crowds, HURIWA expressed shock that the Anambra state governor Willie Obiano has not set up a probe panel till date.

“Honestly speaking, in as much as we are unhappy over the killing of civilians and the policemen, we want Nigerians to hold the commissioner of police responsible for this breach of peace following his illegal, unconstitutional and unwarranted provocative statement in which he was quoted as asking Nnamdi Kanu not to return for his mother’s burial.”

This statement credited to the police commissioner is absolutely irresponsible and uncalled for because he lacks the power to stop any citizen from visiting his country of birth. The police commissioner is neither the Nigerian president nor is he the comptroller General of immigration for him to appropriate the power (a power that is null, void and of no legal effect) of stopping a citizen from his freedom of movement which even the president lacks so far as the person is a citizen of Nigeria. Why make such a careless statement and then invade the home of the legal representative of IPOB as if the lawyer has no constitutional rights to freedom of association and to meet with his clients as a practicing lawyer?”

HURIWA in a statement with the National coordinator Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko and the Media Affairs Director Zainab Yusuf condemned the declaration of the lawyer to IPOB as a wanted person by the police because it would seem that the police officers and the Anambra state police command are both the prosecutor and the judge in their own case and acting as if Nigeria has become a banana republic. The group said the arrogance of power by the Anambra state police commissioner must be checked since no man is above the law.

“We call on the Anambra state governor to wake up, constitute a judicial investigative panel to uncover the remote and immediate causes of the disturbances and the invasion by police of the home of the lawyer to IPOB and the alleged killings that took place as a consequence of that illegality just as the Rights group asked the police to restrain themselves from bringing any physical harm on the person of the lawyer of IPOB and to allow the due process of the law to take its full course.