- Violence forced 600 persons into IDPs camp in Southern Ijaw- Group
Adedayo Akinwale in Abuja
Seven months after the Bayelsa gubernatorial election was held, Amnesty International (AI) said on Wednesday that it will launch an investigation into the electoral violence that characterised the contest which led to loss of lives and also forced 600 persons into the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) camp in Southern Ijaw.
The representative of the international rights group, Barr. Attah Ikide, made this known in Abuja during a public presentation of a report carried out by the Save Ijaw Nation Group titled; “Unreported Cases of Human Rights Abuses and 2015/2016 Bayelsa Governorship Election Violence.”
According to him, “I have not gone through this report but if like he said some of the pictures that we saw on the Internet are the pictures in here (report), then this is something that Amnesty International will take seriously.
“When you contacted me, I immediately called our United Kingdom office and I informed them that there was a report coming out; what now happens is that when we have a report like this, we take it to our research unit and they will look into it and investigate it
“It’s a long time I saw something like this in Nigeria, but most of the time why Amnesty will not take up some of the human rights cases in Nigeria is because some Iof those cases are not well researched. If you look at this report, it is well researched; a lot of pictures in here, witnesses, evidence. Amnesty needs more of these things
“This will be the first comprehensive report Amnesty will be receiving from southern Nigeria. So we are going to take it seriously, I promise you am going to take this to our people in the UK; they will engage the Amnesty group here.”
Earlier in his remarks, the Secretary of the group, Mr. Olufemi Akindele, said that having realised that a lot of things were unreported despite the numerous reports made by victims, and despite the numerous arrests that were made on the days of the election in December and January, the group took it upon itself to conduct a comprehensive investigation on it.
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