By Johnbosco Agbakwuru, Abuja

Senator Barnabas Gemade has called on the National Human Rights Commission, NHRC, to investigate and prosecute the Commandant, 72 Battalion, Nigerian Army, Makurdi, Benue State, Col. Timothy Lagbaja, for the alleged harassment, intimidation and assault on him during the April 11, governorship and state assembly elections.

Gemade

The call for prosecution of the commandant was contained in the petition he personally submitted to the Executive Secretary, NHRC, Ben Angwe, in Abuja.
Gemade, who is Chairman, Senate Committee on National Planning, in the petition said that he alongside some of his constituents were subjected to inhuman treatment by the Commandant.

He alleged that he was molested by the commandant who invaded his house on the said date with detachment of soldiers claiming that there was information that he (Gemade) was harbouring fake soldiers.

He said though, he had no problems with Col. Lagbaja leading a delegation of the military ostensibly to give support to the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, in the election, the conduct of the army officer was strange to him, but as a candidate in the March 28 election where the commandant started   his alleged hostility, he had to restrain himself.

According to him, “At about  10:30 am  (April 11), I heard some noise and shouting at the gate of my compound and I quickly followed the direction of the shouts and cries that filled the area. I saw soldiers rushing round the yard harassing and beating people.

“The I saw Col. Lagbaja whom I recognised very well shouting orders to the soldiers ‘arrest them, arrest them.’ I called him by name and sought to know what was going on. Col. Lagbaja then walked up close to me shouting at me, saying all manner of things,” he alleged.

He said the army officer accused him of keeping fake soldiers in his house, going all over the place in the last election and threatened to deal with him if he moved anywhere that day.
Senator Gemade who has been re-elected for second term in the senate after defeating the sitting governor, Gabriel Suswan, asked the commission to declare the conduct and behaviour of the army officer towards him and his constituents as illegal, unlawful and unconstitutional.

He also sought for an order compelling Col. Lagbaja to apologise to him and compensate his constituents whom he allegedly brutalised.

The former National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, further called for an investigation to be caused by the commission into the incidence and adequate punishment to be meted out to the army officer if found culpable as well as recommendation of disciplinary action against him to the Nigerian Army.

Receiving the petition from the senator, Dr. Angwe commended him for not taking the laws into his hands and his respect for the commission.
He said that the commission would investigate the allegation and ensure that anybody that was found guilty will face the full wrath of the law.