[NIGERIA] : Recall: Melaye petitions Police IG, UN, US, UK, alleges threat to life

March 26, 2018 0 The embattled lawmaker representing the Kogi West Senatorial District, Dino Melaye, has petitioned the Inspector-General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, and several global bodies over what he described as a threat to his life.
In the separate petitions, copies of which were obtained by our correspondent on Sunday, Melaye alleged that there was a plan to murder him “extrajudicially” by his “political enemies” in collusion with the men of the Kogi State Police Command.
The senator also petitioned the United Nations’ Resident Representative and the Ambassadors of the United States, Germany, Canada as well as the High Commissioner of the United Kingdom in Nigeria.
Others petitioned were the Amnesty International, Transparency International and the Human Rights Watch.
The petitions were signed on behalf of Melaye by his lawyer, Messrs Ricky Tarfa and Co.
Melaye, who is the Chairman, Senate Committee on Federal Capital Territory, in the petition to the IG, urged the police boss to raise a neutral police team to investigate the allegations of gunrunning being levelled against him by the Kogi State Police Command allegedly in conspiracy with the Kogi State Government.
The lawmaker called for the intervention of the IG, members of the international community and global human rights bodies to save him from the “wilful, intentional harassment, oppression, political victimisation and threat to life.”
Melaye, in the letter personally signed by him and addressed to the UN and other envoys in Nigeria, urged them to help guarantee his fundamental rights to liberty.
He said, “As things stand, I live each day in constant and reasonable fear for my life, looking over my shoulders and being harassed by the named politicians. The police are hand in glove with these politicians.
“I am a law-abiding citizen who voluntarily submitted myself before the FCT High Court to answer charges which I know are unsustainable.
“However, the situation I am in right now gives me a reason to believe that the law enforcement agencies, particularly the police, are in cohorts with my political enemies and can even go to the extent of terminating my life extra-judicially.
“I therefore seek your intervention in the circumstances to ensure that my fundamental human rights which both Nigeria and your countries are party to are guaranteed and my life protected.” – Punch