A charity foundation and rights group based in the United States,Tilova for Africa has said it will pay for services of lawyers who will defend the rights of native doctors arrested and detained by the Anambra State government.
Martins Nwabueze, the foundation’s Chief Executive Officer said this yesterday while reacting to the arrest and detention of some native doctors by the state government as part of efforts to tackle insecurity.
Law Mefor, Commissioner for Information in Anambra has confirmed that Chiedozie Nwangwu, Onyebuchi Okocha and 28 others are still in detention and undergoing investigation for allegedly preparing charms for criminals.
Nwabueze described the arrest and detention of persons on the basis of their religion or trade under the guise of fighting insecurity by the Anambra government as unjust profiling.
“As a foundation, we shall work to ensure that these people enjoy equal rights like others, so, we a volunteering to provide free legal services for these people.
“We are aware of the enormous safety concerns in Anambra but we should not allow the cyber antics of a few clowns parading as native doctors to make us enact laws that could impact the way of life and belief system of a people negatively,” he said
The activist said Nigeria is a secular state where everyone has rights to practice his or her religion or ply his or her trade without discrimination, intimidation, humiliation or scapegoating.
He said traditional medicine practice is an age long profession which existed in many African societies and should not be abolished in Anambra because of presumptive evidence.
Nwabueze said his group was in total support of whatever would bring peace and security in Anambra, but insisted that nobody or group should be discriminated against because of their religion.
He urged the Anambra State government to release them if there was no evidence against them instead of keeping them perpetually in detention.
“Tilova for Africa has followed the development in Anambra State with concern, while we support the governor on the effort to make the state safe and secure, we condemn the crackdown on indigenous religious practices in the State.
“The arrest and continued detention of over 30 native doctors by the Anambra government just because the government presumes that they prepare a charm for criminals is not good
“This type of crime fighting is primitive and unacceptable in 21st century Nigeria, we support the government to arrest crime and not content creators.
“We invite native doctors that need our free representation to reach out to us through our website:www.tilovaforafrica.com.”
Nwabueze called on Soludo to invest in tech driven security architecture with adequately trained manpower to ensure that only culprits were arrested, detained and prosecuted.
Credit: The Sun