Lockdown: Reps to investigate alleged extra-judicial killings

The House of Representatives has resolved to investigate alleged extra-judicial killings being perpetrated by security agents while enforcing COVID-19 lockdown across the country.

This was resolved during plenary Tuesday based on a motion of Urgent Public Importance moved by Nkeiruka Onyejeocha (APC, Abia) and co-sponsored by Dachung Musa Bagos (PDP,Plateau) over the incidences of alleged killings and human rights violations.

According to the motion, security agencies, which include the Nigeria Police Force, the military and para-military agencies, are saddled with the responsibility of enforcing compliance with the lockdown within the limits of their rules of engagement to safeguard the human rights of citizens.

The Federal and some State Governments had declared a 14-day lockdown in Abuja, Lagos and Ogun States on March 29, 2020, to stem the spread of coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) pandemic in the country.

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There had been allegations of extra-judicial killings and widespread human rights abuses by security agents in their efforts to enforce lockdown across the country.

The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) said, at least, eleven persons were killed extra-judicially in the three weeks of COVID-19 lockdown extension in Nigeria.

Of these 11 extra-judicial killings, Abia State recorded the highest with four.

An earlier report by the NHRC at the end of the first two weeks of the lockdown in the country had indicated that Nigerian security agents killed 18 people in their enforcement of measures to curb coronavirus, a figure higher than the documented toll inflicted by the disease as at that time.