Brutal Murder of Mech. Engireering Student of NASS POLY By Military in Nasarawa State.
By Uji, Wilfred Terlumun
It is no longer news the brutal and gruesome murder of Achinya, Terhile Timothy, a Tiv man by extraction from Benue State, who was a Diploma Student of Mechanical Engineering with the Mustapha Agwai II Nassarawa State Polytechnic, by men of the Nigerian Military based in Doma of Nasarawa State.
In the frantic bid and conspiracy to destroy the evidence, the body of the deceased was recieved and concealed by the Federal University of Lafia meant for the experimental purposes of students of anatomy of the University.
According to eye Withness accounts, Achinya, Terhile Timothy was wrongly accused by a fellow student of the polytechnic of belonging to a rival cult group who reported the deceased to some military patrol men stationed in front of the polytechnic to prevent a break down of law and order by graduating students who were in a glee of jubilation, signing in and signing out their graduation.
The military men whisked away Mr Achinya to their military barracks at Doma where he was subjected to all forms of brutal beating, assault and humilliatiion.
Mr Achinya did not survive the severe and merciless assault of the army officers and passed on in the process.
In a frantic effort to conceal the hideous and brutal crime, the men of the military through the Nigerian Police Force, gave out and dumped the corpse at the Medical School of the Federal University of Lafia as an unidentified body without a rightful claim by the public.
The brutal killing of Mr Achinya by men of the Nigerian Military raises a lot of fundamental issues about human rights violation in Nigeria as well as the plight and the status of the Tiv People in Nassarawa State.
It is recent that in Lafia, the capital of Nasarawa State that there was a public seminar and workshop on military and Civil relations, human rights considerations and abuses in a democratic dispensation.
There is something fundamentally wrong when men of the armed forces who are professional trained to kill only in war time , will negate that constitutional process, to kill an unarmed civilian in peace time. Men of the Nigerian military do not carry a warrant arrest to detain and torture a criminal except under war situations or where there is martial law or the total breakdown of law and order.
What then can be that provocative for armed military men of the Nigerian army to kill in cold blood a Nigerian student.
In a swift response, Hon Arc. Asema Achado, the member representing the Gwer- Gwer West Federal Constituency moved a motion on the floor of the Federal House of Representatives for a thorough investigation into the mysterious circumstances that sorrunded the killing of Mr. Achinya. He also moved that human rights agencies and law enforcement agencies should investigate and bring to justice the perpetuators of the dastardly act.
The killing of Mr Achinya raises a question about the citizenship status of Tiv People in Nasarawa State. Who are the Tiv People, are they First Class or Secound Class Citizens of the State or even Third Class Citizens of the state.
This question has become pertinent looking at how the corpse of Mr Achinya was humilliated, abused and denied of access by his family who had to write several petitions backed up by a human rights lawyer before the corpse was released to the family for final interment.
Equally worrisome is the fact that there has been a lukewarm altitude by the Government of Nassarawa State and more, the Nassarawa State Polytechnic where the deceased was a student, towards the travesty of justice that trailed the Killing of Mr Achinya.
There is strong ethnocentrism manifest and displayed by the government of Nasarawa State and the State Polytechnic over the violent demise of Mr Achinya.
Nasarawa State has been a hot bed of anti Tiv, Benue phobia thinking and sentiments that dates back to 2001.
When one considers the fact in this present twentieth first century that the Tiv population of Nasarawa State are Land Tenants and Share Croppers, an aspect of modern slavery, this practice underscores the political significance of the brutal killing of Mr Achinya as it reinforces the fundamental question of indeginship and citizenship of the Tiv People in Nasarawa State. In recent years, there has been the systematic driving out of the indigenous Tiv People of Nasarawa State with the grabbing of their ancestral lands reducing them into a landless peasant population.
Mr Achinya is a metaphor of the kind of inhumane and often dehumanizing treatment the Tiv People of Nassarawa State have suffered over time.
One could had expected that the Federal Law Maker for the Obi, Lafia Federal Constituency should had raised the motion of the military violation of human rights exemplified in the killing of Mr Achinya at the Federal House of Representatives. Or equally, a motion by the State House of Assembly of Nasarawa State in total condemnation of the hideous day time slaughter of a peaceful law abiding student of school.
State Legislative action and advocacy could had gone a long assuage the fears of the Tiv People of Nassarawa State that their security and safety remains the basic and primary concern and duty of the Government of Nassarawa State. Their inaction suggest a likelihood of the Institutionalization of violence against the Tiv People of Nassarawa State by both militant groups and perhaps, the military.
Meanwhile evidence from pathological investigation has revealed the likelihood of Mr Achinya been beaten to death by the military whose names and identities has also been documented.
To forestall such ugly and unacceptable incidents in the future, there is need both the Government of Benue State and Nasarawa State should set up a Public Hearing on the Killing of Mr Achinya and the Tiv Land Tenant Slavery in Nasarawa State.
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