The Coalition of Northern Groups (CNG) has formally written to the United States Embassy in Nigeria, demanding fairness for the suspended Deputy Commissioner of Police, Abba Kyari, who was indicted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
Kyari, who was also a former Head, Inspector-General of Police Intelligence Response Team (IRT), before his suspension, is accused of being bribed by the suspected billionaire fraudster, Abbas Ramon, also known as Hushpuppi.
Daily Trust had reported how the four-man panel, being headed by the Deputy Inspector General of Police in charge of the Force Criminal Investigations Department (FCID), Joseph Egbunike, probed the allegation levelled against the cop.
However, the Northern groups in a letter served and received by the American Embassy in Abuja, an acknowledgement copy of which was made available to our correspondent on Sunday, said it was worried by the trajectory introduced around Kyari’s case.
It stressed that it did not deny the FBI or any other police organisation to investigate the crimes allegedly committed by the cop but appealed that he should be treated fairly.
The petition, signed by CNG’s spokesman, Abdul-Azeez Suleiman, maintained that a number of “fundamental procedural lapses in the conduct of the investigation which tend not only to threaten the sovereign status of Nigeria but also infringe on its citizen’s rights and civil liberties; threatens the rule of law and confronts the humanity and civilization that the people of the United States of America stands for.”
The CNG said it specifically noted that the FBI, an acclaimed American security agency, might invariably have breached the standard legal and diplomatic practice by neglecting to contact either the Nigerian High Commission in the US or the Nigerian authorities through the FBI liaison offices based in Nigeria before going ahead to file for the indictment of a top Nigerian Security Officer.
“We also note that the FBI might have breached another fundamental criminal justice procedure by not according Mr Kyari the benefit of being heard before going ahead with the purported indictment by an American Court in the US for an offence purportedly committed in Nigeria, triable under Nigerian laws, by Nigerian courts and on Nigerian land.
“A breach of decorum and negligence of procedure might have also occurred when the FBI hurriedly published the purported indictment online without first intimating the Nigerian authorities and hearing the accused’s case,” the petition partly read.
The CNG cited Articles 6 and 7 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples Right, Section 36(1) of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended), and the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights which affirms that everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to the law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defence.
It reminded the US that its bilateral friendship with Nigeria is guided by the principles of sovereignty, promotion of peace and the standards that guide legitimate interference, warning that their intervention, exclamations and actions should not be drawn to discountenance the right of the Nigerian state to protect the legal rights of its citizens.
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