Unacceptable profiling

Despite their claim of innocence, and in spite of the fact that the nature and frequency of such migration by this class of Nigerians should be available to the security agencies, the confused and hapless migrants were held for weeks until most of them were identified for what they were by the representatives in the […]

Despite their claim of innocence, and in spite of the fact that the nature and frequency of such migration by this class of Nigerians should be available to the security agencies, the confused and hapless migrants were held for weeks until most of them were identified for what they were by the representatives in the National Assembly.
Since that incident, several cases of such episodes have been reported, and they all have a common thread running through them. In many parts of the country, especially in the South-East region and Niger delta area, any congregation of persons of Northern origin is considered to be suspicious as to constitute a security risk.
The conduct of security agencies in treating such matters does not bode well for inter-ethnic cohesion and national unity.
The unresolved case of the killing of some menial workers in an uncompleted building by a team of State Security Service (SSS) personnel and soldiers is a case in point. After inquiries by committees of the National Assembly and a separate one by the National Human Rights Commission, what came out clearly was that not only was that operation a terrible mistake undertaken on the basis of unverified, possibly false, information provided by a dubious source, it could not have occurred if the victims were not from a particular region of the country.
These days, the time-honoured commercial tradition of transporting cattle and personnel in conveys of trailers from the North to the southern parts of the country is coming under severe strain because of this type of profiling.
The activities of Boko Haram have cast a pall over inter-communal relationships, especially between Nigerians in the North and their fellow citizens in the south; this has been exacerbated by selfish politicians who have exploited this to further widen the country’s ethnic divides for political ends.
Just yesterday, a Lagos-based newspaper, attributing its report to ‘’a source”,  claimed that the police in Rivers State had arrested 320 suspected members of Boko Haram along the boundary between Rivers State and Imo State.
In keeping with established trend, the Rivers State Commissioner of Police, Mr Mbu Joseph Mbu, instead of clarifying the situation that could add to the continuing security challenges in his area of operation, only acted in manner that could deepen anxiety among members of the public.
“It is a top security issue”, he was quoted as saying in the report, and added that he would not make any comment until investigation was concluded.
While the state government issued a statement denying the presence of Boko Haram in any part of Rivers, the matter has been thrown into the boiling cauldron of the political power struggle that has all but crippled governance there.
But a clue to the hollowness of the report came from neighbouring Imo State, where the police command issued a statement, reported in one of the newspapers yesterday, but not reflected in the Lagos paper referred to earlier, that any notion of the presence of Boko Haram members in the location that was reported was false.
It turned out that, according to the Imo State police command in the statement signed by its spokesman, DSP Joy Elemoko, that there were dozens of youths picked from various parts of the country and camped at the Imo College of Advanced Professional Studies and in other parts of the state for training, she said specifically, that did not include snipers.
The rule of thumb that some branches of the security agencies seem to apply to profile possible Boko Haram suspects because they come from particular regions of the country is arbitrary and tendentious.  It must stop.