Coalition of Northern Groups and other Civil Society Organisations in the region, on Sunday, demanded a review of the suspension of DCP Abba Kyari from the police.
Police Service Commission had suspended Kyari following his indictment by the United States of America’s Federal Bureau of Investigation.
FBI had alleged that international fraudster, Ramon Abbas, aka Hushpuppi, paid a bribe to Kyari, an allegation the police officer has vehemently denied.
The police had set up a panel, which quizzed Kyari who was also removed as head of its Intelligence Response Team.
But the Northern Coalition at a meeting on Sunday, demanded an immediate transfer of Kyari’s case to the Nigerian Intelligence Agency.
According to the communique read to newsmen at the end of their meeting, the coalition said the joint meeting of the CNG, CSOs and NGOs held out of concern about the worsening insecurity and other threats to education and personal integrity and liberty of eminent northerners.
Reading the communique, the CNG spokesman, Abdulazeez Sulieman, who read the communique, jointly signed by leaders of CNG and eight other CSOs, said the Roundtable deliberated primarily on three key issues, including the Abba Kyari/FBI saga, current security challenges and voter registration apathy.
Suleiman accused both the FBI and the Nigeria Police Force of infringing on Kyari’s fundamental right to fair hearing by denying him the benefit of being heard before taking “hasty actions against him.
The communique read, “Participants at the roundtable critically reviewed the events that have unfolded since the reports of a purported indictment of Deputy Commissioner of Police, Abba Kyari by a United States Court for involvement in charges filed by the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) against a suspected fraudster, Ramon Abbas Hushpuppi.
“The Roundtable specifically noted several procedural lapses bordering on breaches of international protocol in the supposed FBI attempt to wrap DCP Kyari in the Hushpuppi affair, as well as the obvious haste by the Nigeria Police authorities to strip him of his position with an immediate replacement.
“That the FBI, an acclaimed American security agency, might invariably have breached the global standard legal and diplomatic practice by neglecting to contact either the Nigerian High Commission in the US or the Nigerian authorities through the FBI liaison offices based in Nigeria before going ahead to file an indictment of a top Nigerian Security Officer.
“That the FBI might have breached another fundamental criminal justice procedure by not according Mr Kyari the benefit of being heard before going ahead with the purported indictment by an American Court in the US for an offence purportedly committed in Nigeria, triable under Nigerian laws, by Nigerian courts and on Nigerian land.
“A breach of decorum and negligence of procedure might have also occurred when the FBI hurriedly published the purported indictment online without first intimating the Nigerian authorities.
“The Roundtable also raised questions on the apparent haste with which Kyari was suspended and an immediate substantive replacement named by the Nigerian police authorities, an outright breach of Mr Kyari’s fundamental right to fair hearing by both the FBI and the Nigerian police authorities by not allowing him the benefit of being heard before the hasty actions against him, the groups said.
The CSOs also urged the Federal, states and local governments to demonstrate more zeal in securing the continuation of learning in the North by providing adequate protection for school environments.
They further called on Northerners to stop the current registration apathy, advising that they can only change a poor or bad leadership by doing what they did in 2015 with their Permanent Voter Cards.
The CSOs also urged all northern lawmakers and leaders to remain vigilant over concerns on what they described as “sabotage deliberately aimed at crippling the voter strength of the region”.