The office of the Public Advice Centre (PAC), an initiative of the Lagos State Government, yesterday, invited Samuel Nwankwo, who recounted his ordeal at the Orile Police Station where he was illegally detained. IGP-Solomon-Arase In the same police cell that he was held he saw school children still in their uniforms.
Police arrested them and asked their parents to bail them with various sums of money. Saturday Vanguard published his story last week and the Office of Public Advice invited him. Saturday Vanguard followed him to the police. The 40-year-old business man who deals on furniture and interior decoration at the popular Alaba International Market, Ojo, Lagos, had alleged that he was detained after some armed men on mufti accosted him few poles to his residence at Chief Natufe Street, Surulere, around 2am while he was going home after a night out.
He alleged that his explanations to the gun-totting men who later identified themselves as policemen from Orile Division fell on deaf ears as they bundled him into their bus after giving him hot slaps. According to him, as soon as they got to the police station, they demanded for money for his release but he refused to oblige them insisting that they must tell him his offence. He was late thrown into the cell where he said that he saw some school children in uniform. They were also being detained for days while their parents were made to look for money ranging from N10,000 to N20,0000 for their release. Meeting with PAC Following the publication in Saturday Vanguard, Mr. Nwankwo was invited to Alausa office of the Centre where he met with six lawyers who are free legal advisers to the centre.
The lawyers who refused to disclose their names because the case was still under investigation asked the victim to write a statement about his contact with the policemen on the said day. The victim proceeded to write a 2-page statement where he narrated his ordeal in the hands of the policemen. He later made photocopies of the statement, gave one to them and kept one. After this, the leader of the team, a female lawyer, said they would look into the statement and take legal action. She assured that if what the victim said turns out to be true, the perpetrators will be punished, stating that they deal with thorough investigation of cases like this where human rights of individuals are violated and other related issues.
What PAC is all about Lagos state Ministry of Justice Public Advice Centre PAC is an initiative of Lagos state government established to provide its citizens easy access to information and advice on a wide range of issues such as: Violation of Human rights, Environmental and other related matters, social welfare, Child rights, social exclusion, discrimination and many others. They serve as an interface to provide information and legal advice to members of the public, dealing with agencies of government, organized private sector, Human Rights Desk, state Welfare departments and other justice sector institutions.
They also assist government by collecting data to be used in policy formulation. How we came about the story The female leader of the team who sought strict anonymity told Crime Guard how they came about the story. “We have a public relation officer who always read the contents of all newspapers everyday and whenever we find a story in relation to human rights or child abuse, we pick up the story. What captivated us was the headline of the story in Saturday Vanguard. It was the fact that under-aged school kids in uniforms were detained for days in a police cell while their parents were forced to look for money to bail them out.
We concluded that it was a child abuse story and we picked interest and started looking for the victim, Mr. Sammuel. PAC is a free legal system that is accessible to all, particularly people in dire need of legal advice and those who have been socially excluded or subjected to discrimination. What we normally do is to gather relevant evidence from our client, we do thorough investigations and then follow every legal means to get justice for them.”
Source: Vanguard
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