Acting president of the Committee for the Defense of Human Rights, Comrade Prince Kehinde Taiga, has said that there is no constitutional provision for the Nigeria police to parade crime suspects before being pronounced guilty or not by a competent court of law.
In a telephone conversation with Emerald News, Prince Taiga said parading crime suspects by police before arraigning them in court is a violation of their fundamental human rights. He made reference to Evans who was paraded by the police as a kidnapper years back but now he says he is a business man and not a kidnapper.
He said police should stop parading suspected criminals who have not been pronounced guilty by courts, insisting that police have no right whatever to parade suspects who have not been declared guilty by courts.
The human rights activist noted that such action by the Nigeria police is a defamation of their character and it should be stopped forthwith. He insisted that every suspect should be given fair hearing and crime authenticated before they are paraded as criminals.
Taiga, who faulted the lavish lifestyle of some police officers in Nigeria, noted that members of the Nigeria police force should be checkmated by the code of conduct as many are living beyond their salaries and allowances.
He alleged that most senior police officers are aiding and abetting corruption in the force, thereby tarnishing the reputation of the Nigeria police force before the Nigeria people and the international community.
He said his organisation, the Committee for the Defense of Human Rights CDHR will work with the police to unravel corrupt officers and fish them out.
He also said the Economic and Financial Crime Commission EFCC should not only parade or display yahoo boys or fraudsters on their social media pages, they should also display corrupt and thieving politicians with the tag on their chests on their social media pages.
While he said his organisation supports war against crime and criminality in whatever guise, he called for fair hearing and unbiased approach from the bodies charged with the responsibility of prosecuting criminals in the country.
