With great dismay, the attention of Committee for the Defence of Human Rights CDHR Ebonyi State branch have been drawn to the abuse of Human Rights by the men of security force who mount at different checking point in Ebonyi State especially the Police at Onuebonyi bridge, Army at Ezzamgbo and police at the boundary between Ebonyi and Enugu state.
These men derives joy in abusing our people by ordering every passengers including some sick patients to come out of their buses and trek for reasonable length before permitting them to enter back to their buses and those riding on motorcycles forced to come down and roll their motorcycles for reasonable length before allowing them to go with their motorcycles.
This very practice have paved much way for them to extort the citizens who are making use of these roads and in more crude way those police at Onuebonyi bridge has made it in such a way that they must extort all the road users including old men and women from village who are coming to sell their farm proceeds in Abakaliki and by that implication cause much traffic holdup in just a single lane road.
This inhumane treatment against Ebonyians by men of our security forces whom we pay through our taxes must be put to an end.
We are not against security agencies searching cars or passengers but forcing every cars to pack and every passengers disembark from their buses and trek till they pass a reasonable length is crude and outdated and should be stopped and modern way of doing such duties employed, even in Anambra state, Enugu or in some Northeast state which have more security challenges don’t pass through such horrible crude security check but in Ebonyi State almost all the security agencies including Army Police and Ebubeagu now forcefully subject our people to such crude security check and extortion.
As long as we commend our security agencies in doing their best in combating insecurities in the country we also call on them to observe Human Rights in discharging their duties.
However, we call on Chief Security of Ebonyi State, Gov, Dave Umahi, The Commanding Officer 24 Support Engineers Regiment (SER) Nkwegu, Lt. Col. A.M Sa’ad, the Ebonyi State Commissioner of Police, CP Garba Aliyu to call their men to order to stop trampling on the rights of Ebonyians and observe Human Rights while discharging their duties their various checking point across Ebonyi State.
Comrade Onyibe Jeremiah
Secretary CDHR Ebonyi State
