37 Miners Beaten To Death In NSCDC Custody? This Is Not Policing, This Is Murder

More than 37 suspected illegal miners were allegedly beaten to death in the custody of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps in Niger State, and officers reportedly attempted to dump the bodies without notifying a single family. This is not a rumour from a faceless blog. This is SaharaReporters, last Friday, quoting eyewitnesses with names and details.

The arrests happened on September 15 and 16 around the M.I. Wushishi/Lukoto axis. The NSCDC first told the public the detainees were found dead on September 17 from a suspected disease outbreak. When that story could not hold, headquarters quietly changed its position and said no disease had been medically established. Meanwhile, one Ibrahim Adamu said he personally watched the corpses being brought out and thrown outside the premises like waste. Another man said he went to bail his brother on Thursday and was told to bring N500,000, and that before he left, he watched officers beat the detainees with heavy sticks and iron in his presence. Till today, that man says his brother's body is still with the Civil Defence.

Read Ibrahim Adamu's words again: the law does not say that when someone is caught engaging in illegal mining, they should be beaten to death. Illegal mining is an offence. It has a punishment. It does not have a death sentence, and it certainly does not have a death sentence by stick and iron in a cell. So I ask the Commandant General of the NSCDC one direct question. If these deaths were a disease outbreak, why were families not called? Why did relatives who came to make inquiries have to discover the bodies themselves? You cannot announce a disease and then behave like men hiding evidence. Somebody must answer for 37 bodies.