Minna tragedy: NAS advocates reforms in detention practices of security agencies

…demands probe of illegal mining sites

The National Association of Seadogs (Pyrates Confraternity) has advocated for reforms in detention practices across all commands of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps.

(NSCDC) and other law enforcement and security agencies following the death of 37 suspects in NSCDC custody in Minna, Niger State.

The group also cautioned against treating the report of the investigative panel like previous probe reports which were dumped by the government.

The NAS Cap’n, Dr Charles Meribole, in a statement entitled: ‘’NSCDC Custodial Deaths: Recurring Impunity of Security Agencies Must End’’ stated that inhuman conditions at detention centres across Nigeria’s security agencies require overhauling.

” This tragedy must also compel an urgent review of detention practices across the NSCDC commands and other law-enforcement agencies. Overcrowding, medical screening, emergency response, detainee monitoring, separation of minors from adults, sanitation, ventilation, and access to necessities cannot be treated as administrative details. They are matters of life and death. A detention facility must never become a place where a person disappears from public view and loses the protection of the law.

‘’ The Federal Government must immediately conduct an urgent audit of law enforcement and security agencies’ detention facilities nationwide, particularly with respect to overcrowding, ventilation, and emergency response.’’

Meribole also stated the Minna tragedy should mark Nigeria’s departure from reports of investigative panels that never saw the light of day.

‘’ The tragic death of the 37 teenagers in Minna should mark a turning point in the Nigerian government’s indifference to the implementation of investigative panel reports. The investigation of the Minna tragedy must not become another bureaucratic exercise whose findings gather dust. That cycle must end. The culture of recurring impunity must stop.’’

He also called for a probe into those behind the illegal mining sites, stressing that they contributed in no small measure to the tragic fate that befell the suspects.

‘’There should be a broader inquiry into the ownership of the illegal mining sites where the teenagers were arrested. Section 131 of the Nigerian Minerals and Mining Act 2007 makes unlawful mining without a license punishable under the law. Nigerians deserve to know the owners of the illegal sites that allowed teenagers, who are supposed to be in school, to engage in cheap labour at illegal mining sites, in gross violation of the Child Rights Act 2003 and the Trafficking in Persons (Prohibition) Enforcement and Administration Act 2015. The owners of these illegal mining sites should be arrested and prosecuted, along with those found culpable in the deaths of the 37 teenagers.’’