THE Anambra State Government has confirmed the arrest and detention of security operatives who were captured in a viral video assaulting a female National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) member, Jennifer Edema Elohor.
The operatives, who were members of the Agbunechemba Vigilante Group under the state’s Homeland Security outfit, were filmed beating the corps member at her lodge.
The assault, captured in a viral video shared by Haven 360 Foundation on Facebook on Monday, August 18, showed how the corps member was being dragged and stripped by armed members of the state security officers.
The incident, which occurred at her residence, immediately provoked outrage on social media, with many Nigerians condemning the treatment of the young woman serving the nation.
Speaking on Tuesday, August 19, during an interview on Channels Television, the state Governor Chukwuma Soludo’s Special Adviser on Community Security, Ken Emeakayi, described the conduct of the operatives as unfortunate.
Emeakayi explained that although the officers were on a joint security operation codenamed Operation Udo Gatchi when the incident occurred, their actions went beyond the scope of their lawful duties.
According to him, the joint operation involved the Police, Army, Department of State Services, Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, and the state’s security outfit.
“The operatives in the exercise of their duties and conformity with their power in section 5 of the Anambra Communal Security Law pursued them into the compounds. When they got to the compound, some people ran into different rooms within than compound. So, they went to those places and brought those people out.
“While trying to screen and identify them, we do not rule out this issue of human error, because this is human endeavor. So that unfortunate incident happened.”
He stressed that the operatives were immediately arrested and placed on detention following the incident, adding that disciplinary actions had been taken against them.
“Immediately that happened and we got the report, the first step we took was to arrest the operatives involved in that act, then detain them because our practices is that when an incident involves our own operatives, what we do is that we arrest them, carry out our own preliminary investigations – get the complainant or the victim involved, interviewed them alongside our own operatives in order to determine the level of what action to take whether is something we can handle by internal disciplinary measures or it’s something that we need to prosecute.
“In this case, we arrested our people, then invited the victims. The victim came to my office accompanied by the LG NYSC coordinator, and we brought everybody together to hear them out. In the end, our view was that our men who went on that assignment, though they went on a legitimate assignment, but the actions they carried out there was unacceptable,” he added.
He further noted that the government was prepared to prosecute the operatives found guilty of harassing the corps member, but said the victims of the harassment were not readily prepared to press charges.
Mustapha Usman is an investigative journalist with the International Centre for Investigative Reporting. You can easily reach him via: musman@icirnigeria.com. He tweets @UsmanMustapha_M