Police officers in Aba, Abia State, have been caught on camera using a machete to flog a resident. A video posted on Twitter, on Tuesday, by Harrison (@harrisonmbamara), showed four police officers forcing a man and a woman to do ‘frog jumps’ in the middle of a quiet road.
The man was
later asked to lie down on the tarred road, while an officer used a machete to
flog him repeatedly.
The officers
could be heard, from the clip, shouting at their victims who appeared helpless.
It is unclear
why the two were being punished.
But from the
voices from the background, from the people who were doing the secret
recording, it appeared the assault was linked to the Tuesday attack on a police
station in the city.
Meanwhile,
the Abia State Government, through its Commissioner for Information, John Kalu,
has also reacted to the video.
“While we sympathise
with the Police over the cowardly attack by yet to be identified hoodlums, we
will not tolerate acts of brutality against innocent Abians and residents.
“The state
government will investigate the authenticity of the video with a view to
punishing whoever is found to have unleashed brutality on innocent citizens.
“We call on
the police not to succumb to the temptation to engage in knee jerk response but
to painstakingly identify the culprits and bring them to justice,” Mr Kalu told
Premium Times, Tuesday.
Nigeria’s
human rights record has continued to deteriorate, despite more than two decades
of democratic rule.
Citizens,
frequently brutalised by security officers, hardly get justice because of
Nigeria’s poor criminal justice system.
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