The governor of Ebonyi state, David Umahi has announced a ban on police road blocks across the state.
The governor while addressing protesters on Monday, noted that his administration would no longer tolerate extortion and brutality on the people by police officers in the state.
David also assured the protesters of their security and safety, in their fight for justice and change.
The state government also promised the protesters that a judicial panel of inquiry will be set up today, October 20th, 2020.
In his words,
We will only accept a situation where security personnel stay by the road side, stop and check any vehicle they suspect after which the person goes.
Resist any policeman who asks you for money and call me on phone because enough is enough.
I want to assure that as far as I remain the Governor of Ebonyi state, nobody is going to molest you. You are fighting for your rights, you are fighting for your children, and you are fighting for your future.
So, what you are doing is constitutional but you must be orderly to get something out of it. On the issue of activities of police at the Ekeaba police station, we are going to address it.
You demanded a judicial panel of inquiry, we will set it up tomorrow. The members will be from high court judge, you will deliver two people to be members of a judicial panel of inquiry.
There will be one youth representative, one student representative, there will also be a representative of the police and then representative of human right and then one person from the office of the Attorney-General”.
They will seat and investigate the spate of police brutality, human rights violation, and related extra-judicial killings. They will also recommend compensations.
There will be a trust fund set under me where the panel of inquiry is expected to collect complaints with the victims of police brutality, we will collect those complaints and then pay compensations.
There will also be a special committee and human rights committee comprising the Governor to check the excesses of police.
Security agencies shall be members, those on tactical units of the police shall be members, representative of the youths, and top representative of civil society organizations shall be members too. We are going to have immediately, human rights commission office for easy access to human rights complaints.
