PAN-Arewa socio-cultural organisation under the aegis of Coalition of 52 Northern Groups has called on the United States to ensure fairness in the face-off between the Federal Bureau of Investigation and suspended Deputy Commissioner of Police, Abba Kyari.
The organisation said though it did not stop the FBI or any other police organisation from investigating crimes, it was worried by the trajectory introduced around Kyari’s case.
The CNG in a petition addressed to the United States Embassy in Nigeria served, endorsed by the American Embassy in Abuja on Saturday and signed by its spokesperson, Abdul-Azeez Suleiman, said there were a number of “fundamental procedural lapses in the conduct of the investigation, which tend not only to threaten the sovereign status of Nigeria, but also infringe on its citizen’s rights and civil liberties.”
According to him, the lapses also threaten the rule of law and confront the humanity and civilization that the people of United States of America stand for.
The petition was countersigned by representatives of five other collaborating NGOs and CSOs.
The CNG said it specifically noted that the FBI, an acclaimed American security agency, might have breached the standard legal and diplomatic practice by neglecting to contact either the Nigerian High Commission in the US or the Nigerian authorities through the FBI liaison offices based in Nigeria before going ahead to file for indictment of a top Nigerian Security Officer.
The petition reads, “We also note that the FBI might have breached another fundamental criminal justice procedure by not according Mr. Kyari the benefit of being heard before going ahead with the purported indictment by an American Court in the US for an offence purportedly committed in Nigeria, triable under Nigerian laws, by Nigerian courts and on Nigerian land.
“A breach of decorum and negligence of procedure might have also occurred when the FBI hurriedly published the purported indictment online without first intimating the Nigerian authorities and hearing the case of the accused.”
