Censorship chief escapes lynching for soliciting sex from minor

The director general of the Kano State Film and Censorship Board, Abubakar Rabo Abdulkarim, was nearly lynched over the weekend when a mob attacked him for soliciting sex from an under-aged girl.

Mr. Abdulkarim, the former Hisbah commander was trying to escape from a patrol team which had accosted him when they saw his car parked in a secluded environment - with a young girl inside - when he ran into a motorcyclist. Other members of the Okada union quickly surrounded him and he was only saved a lynching by the police who had been in pursuit of his car.

The censorship board, under his leadership, has waged a scorched earth campaign against actors, musicians and producers in the state for allegedly promoting immorality. As a result, many artistes fled the state and now ply their trade elsewhere..

Mr Abdulkarim, who insisted that the girl he was found with was his niece, said he was not having an affair with her. But when the former enforcer of Sharia law discovered he could not convince the contingent of policemen on night patrol on the propriety of having an under-aged girl in his car at such an odd hour, he panicked. The whole thing looked even more suspicious because for some curious reason he had parked behind a shopping complex along Maiduguri Road that night.

A police source said when the patrol team attempted to arrest Mr Abdulkarim he took flight in his car.

Double trouble

While trying to escape however, he knocked down an official of the Kano History and Culture Bureau who was riding on a motorcycle. This incurred the wrath of Okada riders, who thought that he had knocked down a member of their union and promptly proceeded to give him a thorough beating.

Ironically, it was the patrol team that he had been trying to avoid that finally came to his rescue, although by then the okada riders, who saw he had a girl with him, had damaged the car and were already on the verge of beating him to death.

He was later taken to the Hotoro police division where he was made to write down a statement.

Not a wayward one

When contacted, Mr Abdulkarim said members of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party, and film practitioners, were responsible for his ordeal.

The man, who has been having a running battle with film makers and writers in Kano in his attempt to force them to comply with the Sharia legal code, spoke to NEXT before he travelled to Saudi Arabia for the lesser hajj.

“The girl found in my car was my niece and not a wayward one as insinuated,” he insisted.

Spokesperson of the Kano State police command, Baba Mohammed, said he was not aware of the incident because he was in the hospital at the time. The police commissioner, Mohammed Gana also said he couldn’t speak on the matter because he just returned from Saudi Arabia. He however promised to find out the details from his men at the Hotoro Police Division.

Worried by the extra-judicial killings allegedly carried out by officers of the Nigeria Police during the Boko Haram crisis, the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Adetokunbo Kayode, has summoned the Inspector General of Police and the police leadership to discuss the issue.

Mr. Kayode said, over the past few weeks, documentary and photographic evidence of extra-judicial killings by Nigeria’s police has dominated national and international discourse.

“Specifically, I am refereeing to the Aljazeera documentary on the Boko Haram unrest and Amnesty International’s report alleging extra-judicial killings by the Nigerian Police,” he said.

The Minister, who briefed the press after his meeting with the National Committee on Torture, said he decided to convene the meeting because of the growing unease about Nigeria’s commitment to the promotion and protection of human rights, and specifically to the government’s position on torture and extra-judicial killings.

He instructed the committee to put administrative measures in place to investigate the documentary on the killings, stating that those who appear on the video clip would be identified and made to face the wrath of the law.

He said the visuals undermine our image as a nation of laws that is committed to the human rights provisions in its constitution as well as its international human rights obligations.

“A democracy as resilient as ours must reject the false choice between our security and fundamental freedoms and this is why we cannot tolerate impunity disguised under the cloak of security or any other guise,” he said.

Furthermore, he said policemen who were involved in the alleged killings are now facing orderly room trial and will be brought to justice.

“Over 600 people, including police officers, have been indicted by the investigating committee set up by the Federal Government to investigate the Boko Haram incident,” he said.

Ignored crimes

Mr. Kayode also said the impression is that extra-judicial execution and other unlawful killings in Nigeria are widespread and go largely uninvestigated and unpunished.PHOTO:Baba Fugu Mohammed's family says he was among those killed

“My judgment on this is a matter of record. In one of my very first speeches as the Attorney General (of the Federation) and Minister of Justice of the Federation, I did state categorically that the Federal Government of Nigeria unequivocally condemns all extra-judicial executions and other unlawful killings,” he said. “Going forward, it is my strong believe that the Federal Government of Nigeria has a solemn duty to criminalise torture and make extra-judicial executions punishable by sanctions commensurate with the gravity of the practice. This is an extraordinarily important responsibility of the office of the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, and it is one that will be carried out assertively irrespective of any political concern.”

excerpts :

Nigerian police and military units carried out extra-judicial killings last year in the aftermath of clashes with members of a Muslim group in the north of the country, footage obtained by Al Jazeera appears to confirm.

An estimated 1,000 people were killed as Nigerian government forces fought Boko Haram in Borno, Yobe, Kano and Bauchi states in July and August of 2009.

But the footage obtained by Al Jazeera shows that many of the deaths occurred only after the fighting was over.

Elements of the security forces staged a follow-up operation in which house-to-house searches were conducted and individuals were apparently selected at random and taken to a police station.

'Shoot him in the chest'

In the video, a number of unarmed men are seen being made to lie down in the road outside a building before they are shot.

As one man is brought out to face death, one of the officers can be heard urging his colleague to "shoot him in the chest not the head - I want his hat".

As the executions continue another man is told: "Sit properly we want to take your picture."

The shootings continue as a crowd gathers further up the street in front of the police station.

Voices can be heard saying: "No mercy, no mercy."

Two officers seen in the video can be clearly identified by the name tags on their chests.

The family of Baba Fugu Mohammed, a respected community leader, told Al Jazeera that he was among those put to death outside the police station.

"He was killed, he was killed, that's what we believe. He was shot by the police," one relative said.

Fugu Mohammed was the father-in-law of Mohammed Yusuf, the Boko Haram leader whose group had battled the police, but the two had become estranged.

His family said that he had come to help police restore order, but was shot.