 Welcome back to the breakfast. Earlier, we, of course, showed you a few pictures of men who were paraded by the police a few days ago. They are on your screen. Some of the previously unknown gunmen, also known as un-gone-known men, who have been torturing police stations in Imo State. As soon as that happened, the family of the man on the white shirt on the right side of your screen complained that he was unjustly arrested. They say he's a staff of a construction company in River State, who only came to Imo State to prepare for his father-in-law's burial, which was meant to take place the next day. This morning, we're speaking with the founder of Behind Bars, Human Rights Initiative, Harrison Guameshu. Good morning, Harrison. Thanks for joining us. Good morning. Good morning. All right. Earlier, we had spoken about this, started by saying that this is, once again, another example of police parading suspects who have not been found guilty of anything, but is a part of the Nigerian police's operations, where they arrest people and then immediately tag them with certain crimes and parade them. Let's start there. How much of a problem is that with our country, including the EFCC, parading persons who have not been found guilty of any crimes yet? It is a systematic problem. All these secret agencies, EFCC, they are fond of doing that, too. Now, let me tell you what just happened in Imo State. These guys were raided after the unknown gunmen have attacked the police station before these guys were raided and arrested. Some of them were arrested even before the attack happened in Oji. All right? So these have continued, not just this Oji's own, but other ones that keep happening. Now, we discover that when these people attack the station, you don't see police anywhere. You can see the unknown gunmen parading in the street with God. All challenge. Nobody challenged them. But immediately they attack and see the security men coming and, you know, raiding people and arresting innocent people and detaining them, and now parading them as the hoodlums who attack the stations. So this is a big problem for us in Nigeria and also currently in Imo State, too. Because even when you saw the video, there was a video clip that was made where the people, the masses, were raiding the unknown gunmen. Yes, they were raiding them and even gritting them. They were pulling up to them, but then the police came. Everybody says they were running because they knew that police would still arrest them, innocent people, too. So there's a big problem. You know, there's a disconnect between the masses and the police. And at this point, the police should not, not only the police, the nature I have to involve, so it's the security agencies, too. So we need our trust. We have to have confidence in them to also work with them. Because if you can't see us hailing, the masses hailing unknown gunmen, civilians, and we take it from seven in the street, we're hailing them. We are closer to them. And the police, we are supposed to be closer to, we're not running away from them. So it's a big problem between the masses and also the security agencies in this country. Harrison, some reports I read showed that there are about 6,000 Nigerian kids, children below the age of 18 who are languishing in Nigerian prisons, and that about that 70% of people in Nigerian prisons are there without trial, lots of them innocent. So in your work, as founder of Behind Bars Human Rights Initiative, what are some of the statistics you see on a daily basis of people who, you know, may be innocent but are in prison without any help and justice? Well, because of my job I've been doing for the past seven years, I've been able to visit several prisons and also police custody, too. I've seen people who are there, maybe we do some counseling and we discovered that most of them were there, were picked up from the street and locked up in the prison custody. And because these stories, you can hear them out because they are confined, you can't go to the prison to carry out, like, you know, interview them and the rest of them, too. So there are many of them who are in prison. I can tell you this and I can stand anywhere and say that there are many of them who are in prison to be who are within trial, not even on beam or centers to, you know, computer for any crime. But they are there as a within trial. Three years, four years, five years, six years, seven years, they are there languishing as a within trial. So most of them don't even know where they are there. They only knew that they were picked up from the street, taken to a magistrate's court and remanded in prison. Now, this, what happened is the police knows that the magistrate's court does not have jurisdiction to try criminal matters. So what they do is to pick up the suspect, take them to a magistrate's court that don't have jurisdiction to try criminal matters. They now become a within trial in the prison. But what's the aim? Harrison, so what's the aim of the police doing that? They know that this particular court has no jurisdiction to hear such cases. So what's the aim of doing that? That's not the reason we are currently in. Because the ACJ law has already condemned this, but they keep doing this every time each time the suspects are taken to magistrate's court. Like people who are charged for murder or armed robbery, they cannot be taken to high court. They will now take them to magistrate's court. And they know that magistrate's court don't have jurisdiction to try the case. So what they do, magistrate's court will tell you that we don't have jurisdiction to try your matter. You have to be in the remand, depending on when the DPP advices we come out from the Department of Public Prosecution, that this is your justice. But if your case file leads magistrate's court to DPP, if nobody follow it or no one follow it up for you, it will last for five years, three years, two years, and you will be languishing in the prison. What Taneta is trying to find out is what exactly is the aim? What's the goal? Knowing that the magistrate's court cannot try these cases, but yet you keep a person in jail for five years, 10 years. What's the aim? Does the police benefit from having these persons just locked up? This thing happens where the family cannot come up with big conditions even to them at the police station. So to suffer the suspect family, they always go on that angle by taking them to the magistrate's court. So for instance now, somebody is being arrested and they ask them to pay 100,000 there and they cannot afford the... What happens is they charge you to court. They bring the charges and take it to the police. If these criminal cases comes up, they are supposed to take the case file and cooperate with the Ministry of Justice, DPP, PUNA issue advice. We are supposed to be charged to be caught or released, but these things don't happen. So you're saying basically majority of the most reason why the police do this is because maybe family members cannot afford to raise the money for bail. So just basically share wickedness, like you're saying. And it's not even the police who should be, you know, talking about bail. Is it the police that determines how much bail is? I don't think so, but let's... Well, I want to get released from the police cell. It's a level of wickedness that I can't even imagine. You know, knowing that your police officers are walking around the streets with your rifle, forgetting that you have 10, 12, 15, 11 people that you've kept behind bars and they've been there for eight years and you're going home every day to meet your family. It's a level of wickedness I cannot fathom. But I want to talk about how dangerous things like this are. For example, the emo state issue now, if this is, you know, likely it has been described, random people have been picked up, they have been tagged or known gunmen, you know, of course, while the real criminals and the real gunmen are still walking free. How dangerous is this for, you know, the Nigerian society and for Nigeria itself? Okay, for now, like I said, connect because one, the masses, the citizens will not, will not collaborate to the secret agencies with this happening now. So where the masses, where you have to disconnect between the masses and the police is a very big problem for us. And are you keeping an innocent man in the prison for a crime he never committed is a problem too. Because why is that so? It's coming back to us to gather the events of the people who took him to prison too, who took him to sell. Now. Since we lost Harrison there, we'll try to see if we can reconnect with him because I want us to go down to this specific case of Mr. Ibe and these other people that mentioned some people said one of them, you know, they recognize him to be daddy fresh, what options do they have? Well, I need to bring a lawyer into the situation. We need to know what options does the family have? Can they begin to, you know, prosecute or is there anything they can do to get a human rights lawyer to defend and speak up for their family members? We need to know what options they have, because imagine if it was me just picked up from the streets, what options does my family have? We need to find this out. Hopefully we get Mr. Harrison back on the line or continue this conversation some other time regarding this. You know, like you said, you know, it's important because, you know, this might be, you know, the start of many of the cases that, you know, could also be solved. Earlier I said, you know, that this exposes the level of rot that is in the system, you know, and it's a level of wickedness, you know, also that would make you just pick a random person and tag them, you know, a gunman, take their pictures and you're willing to put them in jail for, you know, for years just on this currently on strike, so a lot of courts aren't even functioning. So you're willing, you know, to put another Nigerian, a fellow Nigerian like you that you know is innocent, you know, hasn't committed any crime. Put a pistol in their hands, put drugs in their hands. And throw them in jail and just go back, go about your regular life. It's a level of wickedness that I cannot even remember. I read a story on Twitter. The devil would be shocked. I read a story on Twitter. This guy said he was driving, his father was in the car, he was driving. And police stopped them at a checkpoint. They asked for his laptop, they gave him his laptop. They were with the laptop for a while. And afterwards they said, oh, look, you have the broader applications that, you know, Internet for Stars use. I said, oh, you have those applications. The guy went to his phone, went to download, went to his laptop, went to download and said, look, this application was downloaded so, so, so seconds ago. They now turn to the phone and say, oh, this is your son, he's a very smart boy. They now left and let them go. They downloaded those applications on his laptop as they held it. Maybe they put their phone on, I don't know, mobile hotspots and connected the Wi-Fi, but they just found a way and they downloaded those applications on the laptop as they held it. So we need to really get to the roots of this corruption, how the police actually sets you up. They're not after the actual criminals, but they're after innocent people who they can set up and imprison. Mr. Harrison, good to have you back. Harrison, if you can hear me, please unmute your mic. Okay, so I wanted to ask you about these particular cases, this Mr. Ibe and the rest of them. What options does the family have to make sure that they get justice for their sons and get them out of police custody? Okay, at this point, because I would fight, the Disha starts work as I was trying, so meaning that the court should have been an option for them to file a parliamentary marriage for them, but now the court are on strike. But what we did yesterday was to file a complaint to the intelligence police, complete response unit at Bogyak. The police here already has been responsible, they have been working with us for the past five years now, and when cases like this happen, they are the one who investigates thoroughly to make sure that innocent persons don't end up in jail. So the CRU are the one family in the matter now. Because at this point now, nobody can take food for them, no lawyer can visit them, no family member can even see them. They have been detained and locked up without food and without family members visiting them at the court. So no one can write any petition, Mr. Harrison? So you're saying no one can write any petition for them to be released? The petition has been raised yesterday, we are petitioning to the CRU, the Apoja office, the complaint response unit, Apoja, headed by A.C.P. Eshaquo, who is already handling this matter now. So we expect by today, for us to get an update from them, for these guys to be exonerated. From that, the three of them there, one is a, one is a what, a Lomaco? He was having a Lomaco choose to fix a window when he was picked up. The other one with a dress is a Baba, is a Baba in Oji. Then the other one was white, once with the construction company, who tell it for a barrier, for the Panayelans' barrier in Oji, when he was picked up. So for this tree, I know of this tree, the white one, the one on dress with the black shirt. Then the smaller one by the left side, who tied to hand. That one is a, works with one Lomaco company in Oji there in a way. He was going to pick a window when he was arrested. The tree that I confirmed that, they were not part of their non-gummen. They were not part of their non-gummen. Yes, I can verify that and I can, I can stand and even say that they were not part of their non-gummen. They were raided, arrested and detained and paraded as non-gummen. It's such a shame. And big shame to the Nigerian police force. And you know, like you said, you know, it's one of the reasons why Nigerians have, you know, very minimal or even zero trust for Nigerian police officers. They don't understand, zero respect, zero trust, you know, and they don't understand the reason why a lot of people see them and turn their faces away. And people who say they see police officers and they deliberately look at them, give them a sconful look. Disgusting, really. Harrison, so if you get a response, how can it play out? Is the response going to be ordering their release? That, I don't know for now, but they're giving out a second number to pull up on the case. Today, we're going to be calling them again today. Like, what are we, an online protest too, for these people detained too. What we want the police to investigate, these people arrested. They should interview them, you know, for them to talk about their involvement. They already said that they were not involved in this whole stuff, in this whole attack on the police station. They were ready to get arrested. So, we don't know why they are, that's because they are known government. That's another issue now. But for now, we are focusing on getting them out from that place. They are currently the police. Because they stay here, they worry where they are being detained. Harrison Guamishu, founder of Behind Bars Human Rights Foundation. We thank you very much for speaking up about this issue. Yeah, thank you. We hope that these guys are set free. And they can return back to their families. Once again, I would always say that this is only a fragment. And I mean fragment, a tiny, tiny, tiny molecule of, you know, exactly the number of people who, throughout, look at, think of those who are in jail, who have been jailed for 10, 8, 12, 15 years. Think of those who have been killed and been tagged armed robbers that will never get justice. You know, and nobody will ever be able to investigate. Think of those numbers of people of Nigerians who have lost their lives and were simply just tagged armed robbers. Those who made it into the police cell and never made it out alive. Those who, of course, who are waiting trial, waiting trial, you know, and languishing in some prison without any hope of justice. It is, this is just a fragment, a very, very tiny fragment of the numbers of Nigerians who have had to deal with this. And it's a shame. It's a shame. It's a big shame. I always, you know, I'm one of those Nigerians, to be honest. I'm one of those Nigerians who drives Bars the police, and I cannot hide my disgust. Because I know that a lot of them, yes, they are good cops. Yes, you know, you have a handful of them that are good cops. But there are certain professions that cannot have, you know, bad, you know, cops. There are certain professions that can't have bad, you know, persons in them. You can't have bad pilots, you know, and say, oh, you know, this airline, you know, we have good pilots or some of them are bad, you know, but, you know, we have good ones. You know, you can't have bad doctors. You can't have bad policemen. You can't have people in that space. It's disgusting. See, I am reminded of a track we played a few days ago on Plus TV Africa. The police paraded some people saying they were criminals. And one of them in the interview said, you know, the journalist asked, why are you here? He said, they say I kidnapped person. Nine, they carry me, come here. I was like, wow, they said, they said, shame, shame. We need to go. Thanks a lot for spending your Thursday morning with us. It's been a very interesting run so far. We hope, of course, that you have a very, very beautiful and fruitful day ahead. If you missed out on any of these conversations, at Plus TV Africa, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and same with our YouTube channel, and do hog a Manchester United fan today. They all need hogs. They need free food. We need hogs and free food. We need all the love that we can get for the next 48 hours. Until Chelsea loses on the 29th, then we'll feel better. Oh my God. Anyway, don't forget to subscribe to our new YouTube channel. It's at Plus TV Africa Lifestyle for all your lifestyle and entertainment needs at Plus TV Africa. My name is Annette Felix. Thanks for watching.