TheCable

The Lagos state police command has announced the arrest of 34 officials of the Peace Corps of Nigeria, a para-military organisation.

Olarinde Famous-Cole, spokesman of the command, who disclosed this on Friday, said the officials would be charged to a mobile court on Saturday.

“The command has arrested 34 members of the Peace Corps,” he said.

“The organisation is illegal, therefore the command would charge the suspects to a mobile court tomorrow.”

Famous-Cole did not give details of the offence committed by the officials.

The development is a setback for the organisation which has enjoyed relative peace since July when the senate passed the Nigerian Peace Crops bill.

On March 1, security operatives stormed the headquarters of the organisation in Jabi, Abuja, and arrested Dickson Akoh, commandant of the corps, alongside 48 officials.

Six staff of the organisation were said to have sustained injuries in the joint raid by operatives of the Nigerian army, Nigerian police force and Department of State Services (DSS).

The police had said “terrorist affiliates” infiltrated the organisation to destroy the existing peace in the country.

Two weeks after the raid, a 90-count criminal charge was filed against Akoh and the organisation’s trustees.

In an interview with journalists after his release, Akoh narrated his plight in detention.

“We were subjected to inhuman treatment for three days, we did not take our bath, we did not have food to eat, including the young nursing mothers among us… Even when female journalists protested and appealed that the nursing mothers be released to have access to their babies, the police said no,” he had said.

According to information on its website, the corps, which Akoh founded on July 10, 1998,  is a “non-governmental and uniformed youth organisation that focuses on working with the youth in getting to know them, their personalities, their dreams and aspirations, their fears, their failures, their successes and their passions with a view of building, harnessing and redirecting their productive energies towards the socio-economic and political advancement of the nation”.