Alltimepost.com Sincerity of Purpose
By Douglas Ogbankwa
The Security Situation Room is inundated by Cries of Relatives of the 52 Students of the Ambrose Ali University, Ekpoma who were recently remanded in prison on Monday the 11th of January 2026.In the same vein, we also condemn the resort to forceful taking of livestock of citizens on the Nigerian Highway under the pretext of protests. Justice is a four-way traffic.
There should have been a thorough investigation of the matter, to ascertain those culpable instead of a blanket remand of 52 students, some of whom claimed to be innocent.
As it is anything Nigerian, only the children of the weak and poor, will end up in prison. In the Nigerian Society, the law is too weak to catch the strong and too strong to catch the weak.
A Society thrives in an environment where there is a certainty of the culpability of a person, by evidence, before such a person can be remanded in imprison study. It is injustice to remand 52 Citizens in one swoop not on a case-by-case basis.
If the High Court had no jurisdiction to hear the matter, it had no jurisdiction to remand the students in the first place. Each of the case file of the 52 Students should have been examined individually, to sift the innocent from the culpable.
Peace is not just the absence of war, but the presence of justice
The Security Situation Room condemns the indiscriminate Remand of the 52 students of Ambrose Ali University and calls out the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) as a shameless bunch of hirelings, who are only interested in boot licking politicians for personal gains.
The Security Situation Room Calls for a review of the remand by the Police, in order to allow the innocent free.
In the same vein , the Security Situation Room Calls for an Amendment of the Administration of the Criminal Justice Law of Edo State as the Ex Parte Order to remand, is in violation of Section 36 of the Constitution , which makes it mandatory for citizens to be given fair hearing before a procedure like the remand citizens can be undertaken .This incidence calls to question the abuse of the ACJL to indiscriminately remand citizens .
Citizens are the fulcrum of Society and the disenchantment of Citizens over any issues , must be taken into cognizance by the authorities, as a State cannot exist in vacuum without the participation of citizens by the exploring of their civil rights .
In the same vein, where the rights of a citizen stop, is where the rights of another citizen begin. The resort to violence during protests by protesters and the forceful taking of live stocks (Cows, Rams and goats), by protesters on the highway, is completely unacceptable. Anyone that does that should not escape the radar of the law. However, the innocent should not suffer the fate of the guilty.
More importantly, it is apposite for the authorities to look into the issues of the incessant Kidnappings in Ekpoma and its axis. The Kidnappings precipitated the chain of events, and it is important that hiluxes and bikes recently purchased by the Edo State Government for security agencies to be used to curb the Kidnappings at Ekpoma.
Douglas Ogbankwa Esq.@douglasogbankwa@gmail.com is the Convener,
Security Situation Room, a human rights advocacy group in Nigeria.
