The Inspector-General of Police, Usman Alkali Baba, has been urged to, without further delay, dismantle all police checkpoints in the southeast.
The Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria, HURIWA, made the call in a statement signed by its National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, and made available to DAILY POST on Saturday, noting the menace of illegal checkpoints by the police and their constant extortion of South-Easterners must be checked.
HURIWA lamented that the presence of allegedly corrupt police officers on extortion spree is responsible for the extrajudicial killings of drivers in many parts of Nigeria, in most cases when the drivers fail to part with as low as N100 bribe.
It recalled that lives were lost while many were injured in a horrific auto crash before Azia Junction, by the Ihiala–Onitsha Expressway, after a truck rammed into six vehicles at a police checkpoint before landing on a bus allegedly filled with passengers.
The human rights advocacy group noted that Friday’s accident was just one out of many, adding that the entire southeast is notorious for police checkpoints and extortions.
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