Northern senators mourn mass death in NSCDC custody and call for investigation

Serving senators from the North on Saturday lamented the mass death of detainees at the Nigeria Security and Civil Defense Corps (NSCDC) detention facility in Minna, the Niger State capital.

In a statement issued by the Chairman of the Northern Senators Forum, Senator Abdulaziz Musa Yar’Adua (Katsina Central), they called for an immediate, transparent and independent investigation into the entire chain of events which tragically culminated in the deaths of about 37 young Nigerians.

They compared the deaths of the alleged 37 illegal miners in the Minna NSCDC cell, to what Auschwitz was, during the Second World War, as a notorious extermination center through the horrific confinement of suspects and the deprivation of dignity.

“The circumstances of their deaths, in which they were reportedly confined to a small room and crying out for help before suffocating to death, are deeply disturbing.

“History has taught humanity how horrific imprisonment can become when defenseless people are stripped of dignity and treated as if their lives have no value.

“At Auschwitz and other Nazi extermination centers during the Holocaust, countless defenseless men, women and children were imprisoned in brutal conditions, many of them deliberately suffocated in gas chambers.

“The Northern Senators Forum therefore calls for an immediate, transparent and independent investigation into the entire chain of events that led to the deaths of the 37 young Nigerians,” they said.

Investigating the tragic incidents, the Northern Senators added that “Nigerians need to know who ordered the arrests, where the detainees were taken, who authorized their detention in the facility, whether the room was fit to house people, when the distress calls were made, who listened to them, what actions were taken and the precise circumstances under which each victim died.”

The investigation, they said, should involve the National Human Rights Commission, the Nigerian Bar Association, credible civil society organizations and independent forensic experts.

“We equally call for independent autopsies for all 37 victims, with the participation of family representatives and independent pathologists.

“Their families deserve the truth, not conjecture. If criminal negligence, unlawful detention, reckless conduct, or any deliberate act contributed to these deaths, those responsible must be prosecuted, regardless of their rank or position,” they stressed.