{"id":126,"date":"2014-08-14T09:22:48","date_gmt":"2014-08-14T09:22:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/?p=126"},"modified":"2014-08-14T09:22:48","modified_gmt":"2014-08-14T09:22:48","slug":"falana-seeks-probe-of-snipers-for-rights-violation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/?p=126","title":{"rendered":"Falana seeks probe of snipers for rights violation"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Mr-Femi-Falana\"<\/a><\/p>\n

A Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Femi Falana, has given the National Human Rights Commission a 14-day ultimatum to investigate an alleged violation of the rights of an accredited observer, Mr. Lanre Suraj, by masked snipers during\u00a0\u00a0 the\u00a0\u00a0 governorship election in Osun State.<\/p>\n

Falana, in a petition dated August 12, 2014, threatened to sue the NHRC if it failed to investigate the the violation of Suraj\u2019s rights during the August 9 election.<\/p>\n

The SAN said his client was \u201cbrutally assaulted by a gang of snipers without any justification\u201d while monitoring the election in Osogbo, the Osun State capital.<\/p>\n

The petition, which was addressed to the Executive Secretary of the commission was entitled, \u2018Request for investigation of the abuse of our client\u2019s fundamental rights by snipers during the Osun State governorship election held on August 9, 2014\u2019.<\/p>\n

Falana said Suraj, who is also the national coordinator of a non-governmental organisation, the Human and Environmental Development Agenda, was accredited as an election observer by the Independent National Electoral Commission.<\/p>\n

He added however that Suraj\u00a0\u00a0 could not identify any of the \u201csnipers\u201d who assaulted him because they were masked.<\/p>\n

According to Falana, his client also witnessed how the snipers\u00a0\u00a0 violated other innocent persons\u2019 rights on the day of the election.<\/p>\n

He said that\u00a0\u00a0 his request for the recording of the \u201ccriminal activities of the official terrorists\u201d was rejected by the police.<\/p>\n

The petition read, \u201cWe are counsel for Mr. Lanre Suraj, the national co-ordinator of the Human and Environmental Development Agenda, a non-governmental organisation on whose behalf and instructions we write this letter.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur client was duly accredited by INEC to monitor the Osun State gubernatorial election which held on Saturday, August 9, 2014.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the course of monitoring the said election at Osogbo, Osun state, our client was brutally assaulted by a gang of snipers without any justification.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs the snipers were allowed to wear masks our client was unable to identify any of them. Our client also witnessed the harassment and intimidation of other innocent people by the snipers. \u201cHowever, our client\u2019s request to the police to record the criminal activities of the official terrorists was turned down.<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving confirmed that the masked persons are not members of any of the security agencies in the country, we hereby request the NHRC\u00a0\u00a0 to investigate their involvement in the Osun State governorship election and the brutalisation of our client by the extra-legal security outfit.<\/p>\n

\u201cMore so, that the Federal Government had vehemently denied knowledge of the existence of snipers in the country.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Femi Falana, has given the National Human Rights Commission a 14-day ultimatum to investigate an alleged violation of the rights of an accredited observer, Mr. Lanre Suraj, by masked snipers during\u00a0\u00a0 the\u00a0\u00a0 governorship election in Osun State. Falana, in a petition dated August 12, 2014, threatened to sue the NHRC […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":127,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-126","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/Mr-Femi-Falana.jpg","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4oswh-22","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=126"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":128,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126\/revisions\/128"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/127"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}