Eviction officials harrass human rights observers

 

Officials from a combined joint task team of the Abuja Environmental Protection Board (AEPB) and several other law enforcement agencies yesterday attempted to arrest international and national human rights activists and lawyers over their insistence on witnessing the destruction of an Abuja slum.

The team made up of officials of the Ministry of Environment, the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, the Army, the Ministry of Transport, amongst others, on Monday, June 27, 2011,

threatened to arrest an international human rights activist with Amnesty International, Lucy Freeman, and two Nigerian human rights lawyers, Esther Uzoma and Kevin Okoro, for taking pictures and speaking to people displaced from the settlement, which the task force had set ablaze on June 25.

The officials had arrived the slum, known as Tora Bora, located along the Garki-Apo Roundabout, in about 10 vehicles and several bulldozers to meet the human activists speaking with the affected community members. The officials, in reflective jackets bearing the AEPB logo, demanded to seize Ms Freeman's camera and ordered her and the others to enter one of their buses.

Despite due identification presented, one of the AEPB officers declared, "You must enter the bus. We are taking you away because it was wrong [for you] to have come here." He was short of shoving them into the vehicle before the arrival of the head of AEPB, Abubakar Yabo, who stood down his overzealous staff, and allowed the activists to go. He then proceeded to supervise the total levelling of the illegal settlement which had grown over several years, stating that the team's mandate was to rid the Federal Capital Territory of criminal hideouts.

For Aaron Sunday, a 30-year-old carpenter from Plateau State who had lived five years at Tora Bora, the actions of the government officials was "wicked and unjustified". With several injuries across his face and body, sustained during the first task team raid, he was left with nothing but the red shirt and dark trousers he had on.

"All the little property I had, everything is gone. I have nothing," he says. And just like Mr Sunday, many more people have been left homeless and destitute. The people of Tora Bora had made the location their home and business location for years. According to them, they have over the years, been paying off officials of the AEPB and the police in exchange for the right to stay.

"Here you have Panteka Association. We sell parts, wood and many products. All our business is here. How we have been staying here for years is because every month the environment people and police will come and we settle them, sometimes N100,000, N200,000," said a displaced man, pointing to the burnt remains of his aluminium and construction shop. "But this time they just come and burn everything down, without allowing us to pack."

But Mr Yabo disputed the claim, stating that adequate notice had been given, of which he said the Panteka Association chairman, Mohammed Abubakar, was aware. However, when Mr Abubakar, on returning from the office of the task team was asked how much notice was given, he replied in Hausa language that five days notice had been given but by the third day the task team came and raided the place. He then refused to comment any further.