HC Deb 18 March 1907 vol 171 cc455-6
MR. CATHCART WASON (Orkney and Shetland)

I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies if his attention has been directed to the outrages by the police at Abok, on the Niger, in the Ubaikwam district, and to the proceedings before the Court; and if he will take steps to prevent any repetition of such scenes and to give the natives confidence in British justice, and insist that no such similar expeditions shall be permitted without a British officer or Commissioner being in charge of the native police.

MR. CHURCHILL

No Report from the Governor on this subject has been received, but the attention of the Secretary of State has been called to the statements in the local newspapers, from which it appears that the native police concerned in the outrages were condemned to sentences from one year's hard labour to three years penal servitude. It also appears that the offences were not committed at Abok (which is the headquarters of a district) but at a village called Ubaikwam in the Abok district. The Governor will be consulted as to the method to be employed in future to prevent a repetition of similar occurrences.