With the report trending that two suspects linked to the murder of Mr. Justice Azuka, a member of the Anambra House of Assembly, have escaped from police custody in the state, Civil Rights Advocacy Group, the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA), said the scandal demonstrates the many decades old deeply entrenched corruption, indiscipline, lack of professionalism and impunity in the Nigeria Police Force.

HURIWA said too that the inefficiency of the police service commission (PSC) in dealing decisively and swiftly with rogue police operatives, has been the incentive for some rogue police operatives to engage in trade by barter with even hardened criminals such as accused murderers. “It is therefore not surprising to millions of discerning Nigerians to hear that two suspected killers of the Anambra State legislator, were allowed to escape by the police. The information that the DPO had ordered for investigation is a red-herring and absolutely laughable because this sort of scandal is deeply rooted within the police circles and can only be solved not by lackadaisical approach but by a massive structural reforms within the police to eradicate the bad and rotten eggs who are in greater percentage in the NPF.”

HURIWA accused rogue police operatives in the country of even substituting real criminals with innocent people arrested randomly from the streets especially if those arrested arbitrarily have no money or anyone to bribe the police to secure bail. Many innocent youths have been taken to prison facilities and are languishing as awaiting trial inmates even when they have no real cases against their names in reality but for being unfortunate and poor.

HURIWA through a statement by the National coordinator Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko stated that the practice by alleged rogue police operatives to connive with accused persons who allegedly committed capital offences to escape the long arm of the law, is as old as the existence of the federal policing system.

The rights group said the police authority should immediately arrest and detain everyone of the police hierarchy in the division from which these two suspected killers were probably deliberately left off the hook. The police officers should face investigation and prosecution if found culpable in this despicable act of sabotaging the criminal law of Anambra state damaging in a massive way the corporate name of the Nigeria Police Force.

“The NPF is and has been a cesspool of corruption and for decades, the successive government officials have actively entrenched and tolerated the culture of indiscipline, absence of any sort of professionalism, gross indiscipline, just as the politicians over the past decades have failed to bring about transformational reforms and structural damage eradication within the policing institution in the Country”.

“There has always been this atmosphere of ‘I will do whatever I like’ provided I have backers on top of the command and control structure of the police and the heavens won’t fall. The escape of the killers of the Anambra State legislator shows how fundamental, the imperative of surgically reforming the decadent federal policing institution in Nigeria, has become. The current constitutional amendment process is our nation’s opportunity to rid the police of these evil machinations that have constituted themselves into formidable forces of retrograde.”

Spokesman of the Anambra State Police Command, Tochukwu Ikenga, disclosed the information on the disappearances of the two suspected killers of the Anambra State legislator.

Ikenga said the state Commissioner of Police, Ikioye Orutugu, received a report on Tuesday that two of the suspected killers had escaped from custody.

He explained that the two suspects who were assisting police operatives had gone out with the operatives for an investigation to arrest a receiver of vehicles used by the criminal gang.

“During the onslaught operation by the operatives, the suspect (the receiver) was arrested and two vehicles suspected to have been snatched from the unsuspecting members of the public were recovered,” Ikenga said.

“Unfortunately, the other two suspects fled the scene.”

The Command’s spokesman stated that the CP has deployed “human, operational, and intelligence assets” to re-arrest the suspects.

He noted that the commissioner also ordered “immediate disciplinary action” against officers found wanting in the escape of the suspects.

This comes about two weeks after a joint security team found the lawmaker’s decomposing body at Second Niger Bridge in Onitsha, Anambra State.

The lawmaker was abducted by gunmen on December 14, 2024.