Citizens of Etua community in Delta protest the Capture of its members

The citizens of a community in Etua in Delta State have raised alarm on the detention of their members by the Police weeks after their arrest.

In a statement, they raised calls on the President, Muhammadu Buhari, Inspector General of Police (IGP), Usman Alkali Baba, Director General of State Security Service (SSS), Mr. Yusuf Magaji Bichi and Delta State Commissioner of Police, Ari Muhammed Ali, to either release detainees held unlawfully by the police or charge them to court with immediate effect in accordance with the law.

The group considered it wrong and unlawful to keep citizens in detention for long periods as every citizen was accorded rights to be presumed innocent until proven otherwise.

It understood from reports that the police had invaded the community on May 21 at about 3:00 am in an operation, shot one person dead, injured 4 while arresting 15 persons.

Addressing newsmen in Lagos, Mr. Evans Ufeli, a leader of the group recalled that the affected persons were all conveyed to an unknown location.

“It is bad enough that a citizen with the constitutional right to life was extra-judicially murdered in cold blood and others with gunshot injuries, all abducted by the Police, leaving the community in utter distress.

“Etua is a very peace-loving community – a dynasty of uncommon purity with no history of criminality in Delta State, therefore we are still in shock over the Police invasion which led to the brutal harassment, intimidation, assault and death of one person, gunned down in the early hours of the morning and his corpse left on the spot in our community.

“The IGP, whilst we cannot vouch for everyone in our community, we reserve the right to be treated with some modicum of dignity, knowing that whatever may have led to this invasion still lies in the realm of allegations. If the Police go around shooting everyone on the street on the basis of allegations, the social co-existence of man will soon be defeated. This Police brutality is of bad and unsavoury taste and we find it repulsive, to say the least.

“The Etua community does not deserve this level of primitive policing that has no regard for human life and civility. We have a right to life under the laws of Nigeria and we choose to keep that life whilst we cohabit in our ancestral land – Etua. We have lived here for over four hundred years and there has never been a time in our history where strangers invaded our community at such an ungodly hour to wreak incalculable havoc of this nature,” he said.

The Public secretary officer, Ekpetor David revealed that though the matter had been reported to the police, nothing had come out of the actions.

The secretary defended the action as a concern born out of the need to know if the affected persons are alive and if there could be ways to assist them with food and medicines