#EndSARS group in Delta State has demanded the immediate release of over 100 persons arrested within curfew hours in the state and are now being charged for arson and murder.
Harrison Gwamnishu, representative of #EndSARS in the Delta State Panel of Enquiry against police brutality, said the arrested persons are currently detained and languishing Ogwashi-Uku Prisons in Delta North District.
This was among the six demands made by the group during Governor Ifeanyi Okowa’s Town-Hall meeting with youths in Delta North Senatorial District, at the Government House, Asaba, Friday.
“Gwamnishu expressed the view that the demands directed to the Delta State Government under the leadership of Governor Okowa, would go a long way in enhancing positive reforms in the criminal justice system and in the Delta State public service.
“The State Government must expedite the creation of the five-member Police Complaints Committee which it promised will address complaints against an errant tactical squad of the Nigeria Police in Delta State.
“The State Government must also create functional social media channels on Twitter, Facebook, etc, to promptly react to electronic petitions made to the State Government against unlawful detention, Police brutality, extortion of citizens (including the collection of “bail money”) and corruption in the Delta State Civil/Public Service.
“The State Government must also create a desk in the government made up of prominent civil rights advocates, civil right society groups, representatives of credible youth organizations, and the Attorney-General of the State to consider reports and petitions of corruption against rogue security agents or corrupt civil servants, and recommend their prosecution by the State Ministry of Justice.
“The State Government must also sponsor regular programmes and adverts on media to educate residents of the State about all their fundamental rights and the available mechanisms for defence and enforcement of those rights.
We also desire to see the State Government introduce Fundamental Human and Civil Rights into the curriculum of Primary and Secondary School Education in a bid to see that the younger ones in our States are made abreast, from infant stages of their development, about the sacrosanct nature of these rights, he said.
Governor Okowa who spent over two hours responding to the various issues and questions raised by youth groups from the district promised to look into the demands made by the EndSARS group with a view to giving justice to innocent persons in prisons.
Most youth representatives from the various local government areas in the district had also told Okowa at the meeting, that youths of the state were not responsible for the hijacking of the EndSARS protests and vandalizing of private and public facilities in the state.
Those who destroyed the facilities came from a nearby state, they said. Some even pointed accusing fingers at youths from neighbouring Anambra State as the ones who vandalized places like the state’s newly-built recreation park at Koka Junction along Asaba-Benin Expressway, the high court complex, Road Safety Office amongst others
The governor who agreed with them that no reasonable and responsible youth from Delta State could vandalize government facilities in such a manner as was done by the protest hijackers also blamed leadership failure in the country for the protests.
