Intersociety accused the new commissioner of laying fresh ground for the massacre of defenceless residents of the state and wanton destruction of their property following his recent comment that "we have no delight in seeing people lose their lives, but if that is what it takes to protect the people of Anambra State, we will not stop to achieve the mandate given to us by the Inspector General of Police.”
A human rights organisation, International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law (Intersociety), has called for the immediate redeployment or removal of the newly posted Commissioner of Police for the Anambra State, Mr Aderemi Adeoye, from the state.
Intersociety accused the new commissioner of laying fresh ground for the massacre of defenceless residents of the state and wanton destruction of their property following his recent comment that "we have no delight in seeing people lose their lives, but if that is what it takes to protect the people of Anambra State, we will not stop to achieve the mandate given to us by the Inspector General of Police.”
SaharaReporters earlier reported that the state police commissioner, Aderemi Adeoye on Wednesday said if killing some is what it takes to protect the people of Anambra State, the police will stop at nothing to achieve the mandate given to them by the Inspector-General of Police.
But reacting to the statement, the human rights organisation in a statement made available to SaharaReporters on Friday, condemned the statement, citing how the former Inspector General of Police, Usman Baba, turned the South East into a killing fielding after he directed policemen in the zone to "take the war to pro-Biafra agitators and kill them" while assuring them that he would protect them from culpability for extrajudicial killing.
Intersociety regretted that a police commissioner could make such a statement in a country where citizens are deeply divided along ethnic and religious lines.
Signed by the principal officers of the organization - Chief Emeka Umeagbalasi and Chidinma Udegbunam, Board Chair and Head, Publicity Department respectively, Intersociety stated that by making the statement, "CP Adeoye has laid a fresh ground to massacre defenceless citizens of the state and wantonly destroy their properties."
The statement read in part, "The new CP has also exposed his professional emptiness in matters of skillful, intelligence, detective, proactive and preventive policing and diligent and detailed criminal investigations.
"It saddens our hearts that when the securitization world is being ruled by digital policing including man-machine-mental crimes detection or tracking, intelligence, and investigation; the new Anambra CP is speedily taking policing back to the Yore or Stone Age.
"This is more so when Nigeria and its citizens are deeply divided along ethnic and religious lines. Not long ago in Lagos State, a State Resident Electoral Commissioner of the same geopolitical region where the new Anambra CP comes from, made the same ethnic cleansing and murderous comments targeting defenseless members of the Eastern Nigerian population resident in the State; most of whom had settled or lived in the State long before he was born or first conscripted into the Department of the State Security Service as a sworn intake.
"It is on account of the foregoing that we at Intersociety are strongly calling for the immediate transfer or removal of CP Aderemi Adeoye from Anambra State Police Command as "Anambra CP".
"This is more so when CP Adeoye has by the statement, revealed his plans to target and massacre defenseless citizens of the State and wantonly destroy their properties including burning down their ancestral homes. These, the new CP is most likely planning to do or perpetrate using class criminalization, false labeling, and stigmatization.
"Granted that Monday sit-at-home is unnecessary and unwarranted but using the same by drafted security operatives and their chiefs from the military and policing establishments as a cover to wantonly destroy innocent and defenseless lives and properties must not be allowed and tolerated.
"While calling for the end of Monday sit-at-home in the South-East, the murderous security operatives and their chiefs so deployed or drafted must not be allowed to continue to hide under the same to perpetrate and perpetuate horrendous crimes against persons and properties in Anambra State in particular and South-East at large.
"The Monday sit-at-home, though morally unsound and illogical, must not be allowed criminalization by drafted security operatives and their chiefs as if it is the only crime existing in the South-East or any part thereof."