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Nigerian activist brutally attacked by police

The injuries sustained by Sebastian and Joseph needed treating at the local hospital and left one of the men unconcious for four hours.

August 1, 2010: Nigerian police officers have attacked a local activist and his friend by driving sharpened sticks into their heads outside the Divisional police headquarters at Kpor in the Niger Delta.

The officers, also armed with AK47 rifles, attacked Mr. Sebastian Kpalap, a Special Project Officer from the Centre for Environment, Human Rights and Development (CEHRD), and his driver, Mr. Joseph Sunday Pilla, at a road block set up to extort bribes from passing motorists outside the police headquarters at Kpor.

The attack occurred at about 10:00am on Sunday when the two men went to neighbouring Gokana village to buy palm wine on Mr Pilla's motorbike. Mr. Kpalap had just lost his father and was expecting friends and relatives that afternoon.

The police stopped the men and demanded a payment of 50 Naira. When Mr. Pilla protested, Corporal Rufus hit Mr. Pilla in the head with a sharpened stick and he slumped in his seat. When a frightened Sebastian Kpalap then spoke up Corporal Rufus used same sharp stick to tear open his head, knocking him unconscious. Corporal Barile Emmanuel was also involved in the beating of the two men.

When Sebastian regained consciousness he called his boss Mr. Patrick Naagbanton, the coordinator of CEHRD. Naagbanton and other CEHRD officials arrived at the Kpor Police station at 3:30pm where they found both victims lying under a mango tree. None of the Police officers present would comment on their injuries.

The CEHRD team took the victims to the poorly equipped Hospital at Terabon in the Gokana Local Government Area where they were treated for their head injuries.

Once the police realised they were dealing with a well known Human Rights organisation with international connections they visited the casualty department of the hospital to apologise and ordered the immediate release of Pilla's motorbike.

Because of their connections to CEHRD, Sebastian and Joseph were given an apology and had their vehicle returned to them quickly but many others would have suffered a very different fate.

Road blocks of this sort are common across the Niger Delta as police officers extort money from motorists and reports of police brutality at road blocks are widespread.

A pattern of police brutality?

Assuming this was a simple case of arbitrary police brutality administered to the wrong people, other recent attacks appear to show a more concerning pattern.

On March 26, 2010, the Head of CEHRD's Conservation and Environment Programe, Mr. Nenibarini Zabbey, was attacked by an officer whilst returning from an Environmental Impact Assessment Training (EIA) held at Bodo community, the site of serious pollution resulting from concurrent oil spills.

Then on June 8, 2010, CEHRD's Transport Officer, Mr. Alexander Wikina, was arrested by a team of five heavily armed policemen who stormed his house in Port Harcourt at 3.15 am. He was taken to the old G.R.A Police station where he was detained and tortured.

CEHRD is also worried about increasing attacks against colleagues from other local organizations. A number of people from the Social Action and the Civil Liberties Organisation of Nigeria have been attacked by police this year.

CEHRD had initially ignored these attacks assuming they were unconnected, isolated incidents of police brutality but the nature and frequency of attacks seems to point towards an increase in the intimidation of Human Rights Workers in and around Port Harcourt.