By Vera E. Abah
THE Abuja panel probing allegations of human rights violations committed by the defunct Police Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) on Wednesday, awarded N289 million to victims of police brutality.
The beneficiaries include a man who lost his limb after he was unjustly shot by a police officer and the family of a young man who was arrested by SARS operatives and who died in detention six years ago.
Wednesday’s ceremony marked the second and final batch of compensation by the Abuja panel to victims of widespread rights abuses by the police.
The Abuja panel, like those of other states, was set up following the #EndSARS protest in October 2020. The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) set up and inaugurated the probe panel on 21st October 2020.
The Executive Secretary of the NHRC, Tony Ojukwu, said on Wednesday that the compensation ceremony was a “symbolic gesture of President Muhammadu Buhari-led government’s commitment to the protection of human rights.”
Ojukwu, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), described the condition of victims of police violence as sad. “The amount that will be paid today will not compensate enough for the losses suffered,” he said.
Similarly, the secretary of the panel, Hilary Ogbonna, said the mass abuse of Nigerians’ rights that occurred under the SARS would never happen again.
He noted that the best way to fight human rights violations was to prevent them from happening. Chronicling the activities of the panel, which sat for nearly two years, Mr Ogbonna said the panel determined 295 out of the 297 petitions that were submitted.
Highlighting categories of the violations, the panel’s scribe said 25 of the complaints bordered on extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearance, while 16 were related to illegal arrest and detention and four petitions centred on unlawful confiscation of assets by police officers, among other infractions.
In a pre-compensation speech, the Chairperson of NHRC’s Governing Council, Salamatu Suleiman, apologised to the victims of police brutality across the country. She said the NHRC would continue to “promote and protect the human rights of every Nigerian.”
Giving a breakdown of the amount awarded to victims of the gross rights violations, Mrs Suleiman said N289,384,094 has been approved “as compensation to 74 beneficiaries and victims of human rights violations.”
This brings the total amount awarded to 94 survivors and victims of police violence to N431,884,094.
