Covid 19: CSOs Emergency Intervention Group Tasks Security Operatives on human rights violations

The National Covid-19 Civil Society Organizations Emergency Intervention Group have cautioned security and task force operatives monitoring compliance of the Delta State Government’s stay-at-home order put in place to check the spread of the COVID-19, against human rights violations.

Addressing journalists at the Warri NUJ Correspondent Chapel, the Group’s National Director of Media and Publicity, Pastor Edewor Egedegbe flanked by the Delta State Coordinator, Mrs. Bridget Urhie and other members of the working committee expressed concern over the noticeable misconceptions of the government’s lockdown order among the citizenry across the state, particularly the security operatives.

They lamented that many security operatives have been taking undue advantage of the Covid-19 lockdown to further inflict pains on vulnerable citizens for personal aggrandizement.

“Security operatives should not go outside the confines of the directives of the Government so that the vulnerables will not suffer too much”, the CSOs Emergency Intervention Group cautioned.

According to the Group, series of reported cases of forceful extortion have been received against some security operatives since the commencement of the lockdown order in the state.

In the same vein, the group also warned marketers against arbitrary hike in the prices of their goods, particularly foodstuffs, describing this as double tragedy for the vulnerables.

To checkmate the negative trends, the group enjoined the State Chapter of the Nigeria Union of Journalists to constitute an ad hoc committee to join them in the ongoing “education, sensitization and management of the palliatives that will be coming from the state government.”