INSIDE THE SECRET POLICE DETENTION CELL CALLED ABATTOIR

The Nigerian police continue to deny the existence of Abattoir. The pictures and even videos exist.

COMPARISON BETWEEN ABATTOIR AND LIBYAN MIGRANT/SLAVE DETENTION PLACES:

On December 4, 2017, in a report titled “The Libyan Slave Trade Has Shocked the World. Here’s What You Should Know”, by Casey Quackenbush, Time Magazine, stated as follows:

“Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari expressed shock at how his compatriots were being treated “like goats.” On Wednesday, 242 Nigerian migrants were flown out of Libya back to Nigeria.”

The irony today is that the conditions of detention of thousands of Nigerians at the Abattoir detention ground are worse than what happened in Libya. The following is the comparison between Abattoir and Libyan migrant detention centers.

(1) Abattoir is a secret detention center in that the true conditions of detainees inside the building where people are detained are known only to inmates and the guards. Whenever an organization like Red Cross visits the center, the guards would come early in the morning and match the inmates away and hide them in buildings and areas where the Red Cross representatives would not see them. The Abattoir detention center with 1200 detainees can be downsized to 300 inmates just to fool the visitors. To the extent that Libyan immigrants detention centers shocked the world when discovered, their existence could be said to have been hidden from the public, just as the Abattoir.

(2) In Abattoir, the building was designed as a place where butchers killed, cut and sell cow and goat meat. It was never intended for human habitation. Yet, over one thousand people at a time are jammed into the space with poor ventilation, and in a squalid and unsanitary conditions that is simply horrific. This is worse than what obtained in the Libyan detention houses.

(3) Like the Libyan detention houses, Abattoir is so inhumanely congested. Detainees are packed like sardines. At night, they are packed on the floor in such a manner that it is impossible for an inmate to turn his body on the floor. Diseases such as tuberculosis, Hepatitis, and other infectious diseases are rampant and inmates are dying unaccounted for. As seen in the pictures attached, the inhumane congestion in Abattoir is extreme.

(4) Like in the Libyan detention, life in Abattoir is worthless. Inmates or detainees die like chicken in a poorly managed poultry. The Abattoir inmates are dying either from torture injuries or diseases. Each morning, one or two inmates will be noticed dead and no one handy would have information on the true identity of the inmates that passed away. Other inmates will simply take the body to the gate and the police would remove the body, and that would be the last to be heard of such people.

(5) Like the Libyan detention, Abattoir does not have proper documentation about inmates. Only the particular police officer that detained a person knows the identity of the person detained. So, if an inmate dies in Abattoir, it may be impossible to identify him, especially if it is new arrival who died from torture injuries.

(6) Like the Libyan detention, the main purpose of the police detaining people in Abattoir is to extort money from the families of such persons. So Abattoir is an extortion machine, like the Libyan detention places.

(7) In the Libyan detention places, the detainees are sold as slave laborers for $400 a person. In the case of Abattoir, an inmate will be charged to court if his family pays N200,000 which is equivalent to $550. Being charged to court is the path to freedom. So, if an Abattoir detainee wants freedom, his family members will pay $550 equivalent to the police for him to be charged to court.

(8) People are detained in Abattoir for up to three years, totally outside the rule of law. We have no clear record how long migrants were detained in Libyan detention houses.

(9) In Libyan cases, only foreigners/migrants were detained. But in Abattoir only citizens are detained.

(10) In Libyan detention, the detainees were fed in order to sell them for the highest amount as slave laborers. But in Abattoir, the inmates are not fed. Starvation is used to pressure the families of detainees for them to pay for their relative to be charged to court.

(11) The Libyan migrants detention centers were controlled by gangs and human traffickers. The Abattoir is controlled by Nigerian policemen. Hence, while the Libyan detention centers are outrightly criminal, the Abattoir operates under the color of law.

PICTURE EVIDENCE OF ABATTOIR:
DPA has both still pictures and video evidence of people in detention in Abattoir. We obtained the evidence from inmates who risked their lives to obtain the evidence and from some police officers whose conscience prompted them to obtain the evidence.

There are two buildings where people are detained in Abattoir. The pictures attached are pictures of the main building. It is an open hall with four smaller rooms on each side of the hall. There is a total of eight such smaller rooms. One of them serves as a storage, while the remaining seven serve as cells. Each cell is just an open concrete floor. Each cells is jammed with about 120 inmates who would barely have a standing space. About 300 to 400 other inmates who couldn’t get into the 7 cells are left in the open hall. Pictures A – F show the hall where the inmates that couldn’t get into the 7 cells are left.

Abattoir is an illegal prison maintained and operated behind the rule of law.

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