Group asks IGP to clarify directive on treatment of gunshot victims

The Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Mohammed Abubakar Adamu, has been asked to clarify to the public whether there is any official directive that before hospitals attend to any victim of accident/gunshot they must obtain permission from the police based on conflicting instructions and terrible fate meted to the victim of gunshots at hospitals across the country.

The demand was made by a non-governmental organisation, Centre for Law and Civil Culture (CLCC), in a letter to the IGP titled, ‘Freedom of Information request on the frequent rejection of accident/gunshot victims by various hospitals across Nigeria on the ground on non-production of the police report.’

The letter, jointly signed by its Executive Secretary, Abdulganeey Imran and the legal officer, Deborah Okpanachi, demanded the IGP to answer whether the Nigerian Police Force is aware of the incessant and frequent rejection of accident and gunshot victims by various hospitals both private and public across the country on the ground of consequent and likely arrest and intimidation of medical personnel by the men of the Nigerian Police for treating gunshot/ fatal accident victims without production of a police report.

The organisation also demanded to know whether it is an official directive from the Nigerian Police or the Office of the IGP that hospitals across the country should not attend to gunshot/accident victims without production of a police report.

CLCC further asked whether the Inspector General of Police has the power to make such directives under any extant law and the steps taken to disabuse the minds of medical personnel and the general public that the Police did not issue such directive and the appropriate punishment to be meted out to any police officer/ station or command that harass, intimidate, molest or arrest any medical personnel who attends to gunshot/fatal accident victims.

In addition, CLCC also asked the Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami (SAN) to explain the legality of the tenure elongation of service chiefs in a letter addressed directly to the AGF and jointly signed by its Executive Secretary, Abdulganeey Imran and Legal Adviser, Deborah Okpanachi, asking him to explain the legality of the continued retention of the Chief of Defence Staff, Major General Abayomi Gabriel Olonishakin, Chief of Army Staff, Major General T.Y Buratai, Chief of Air Staff, Air Vice Marshal Sadique Abubakar and Chief of Naval Staff, Real Admiral Ibok-Ete Ekwas.

The organisation wondered whether the continued retention of the Service Chiefs who were appointed sometimes in July 2015 by President Muhammed Buhari does not amount to illegality while stating that “it’s obviously clear that their tenure in the Armed Forces of Nigeria had since expired.”

The letter further asked whether the president is statutorily empowered by the provision of any enactment to extend the tenure of the Service Chiefs beyond 35 years or 60 years of age, whichever comes first.

“As the Chief law officer of the federation and the Minister of Justice, we ask whether your office has advised the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria on the propriety or otherwise of the elongation of the tenure of the Service Chiefs in Nigeria,” CLCC asked.

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