By
Okechukwu Nwanguma,
 |
| IG Mohammed Abubakar |
For
years now, human rights abuses remain very rampant and entrenched within the
Nigerian Police and Security Forces.
Torture,
brutality, and extrajudicial killing by police and security forces are rampant
and occur in the context of increasing violent crime and belligerent crime
prevention and control strategies by law enforcement and security forces in
Nigeria.
Since 2000,
several local and international human rights advocacy groups have consistently
documented reports of persistent killings and abuse by the police and security
forces in Nigeria. A
culture of impunity protects members of the police and other security forces
involved in extrajudicial killing, corruption and other gross human rights
abuse.
Research findings by Network on Police Reform in Nigeria (NOPRIN) published in 2008 and
updated in 2010 found that Police in Nigeria commit extrajudicial killings,
torture, rape, and extortion with relative impunity. Many members of the
Nigeria Police Force are more likely to commit crimes than to prevent them.
Police personnel routinely carry out summary executions of persons accused or
suspected of crime, rely on torture as a principal means of investigation, and
engage in extortion at nearly every opportunity. This shocking pattern of abuse
calls into question the legitimacy of the entire Nigeria Police Force. The police hierarchy continues to tolerate massive
human rights abuses making it very difficult to achieve change at the lower
levels. This is why it is necessary to start changing the whole culture of
policing in Nigeria.
Amnesty International reaffirmed in 2009 that: ‘Nigerian
security forces have a history of carrying out extra-judicial executions,
torture and other ill-treatment. There are consistent reports that the Nigeria
Police Force executes detainees in custody, suspected armed robbers under
arrest, people who refuse to pay bribes or people stopped during road checks.
The Nigerian military are also frequently involved in extra-judicial
execution…’ as exemplified by daily news reports of massive killings by the
military mainly in the Northeast and Northwest States
where a ‘Joint Task Force’ (JTF) of police and military has been deployed to
check sectarian violence and ‘terrorist activities’ by the Islamist
fundamentalist sect, Boko Haram.’
Human Rights Watch in its 2013
World Report: Nigeria: reports that:
‘Attacks by the militant
Islamist group Boko Haram and abuses by government security forces led to spiralling
violence across northern and central Nigeria. This violence, which first
erupted in 2009, has claimed more than 3,000 lives. The group, which seeks to
impose a strict form of Sharia, or Islamic law, in northern Nigeria and end
government corruption, launched hundreds of attacks in 2012 against police
officers, Christians, and Muslims who cooperate with the government or oppose
the group.’
‘In the name of ending Boko
Haram’s threat to Nigeria’s citizens, government security forces have responded
with a heavy-hand. In 2012, security agents killed hundreds of suspected
members of the group or residents of communities where attacks occurred.
Nigerian authorities also arrested hundreds of people during raids across the
north. Many of those detained were held incommunicado without charge or trial,
in some cases in inhuman conditions. Some were physically abused; others
disappeared or died in detention. These abuses in turn helped further fuel the
group’s campaign of violence.’
Similarly,
in the Southeast region, members of the ethnic self-determination group,
Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) have
remained targets of frequent vicious attack, harassment and
intimidation by security operatives with many of their members secretly killed
by the police in the States in that region. Over the years several MASSOB
activists and sympathizers have been shot at while embarking on peaceful
rallies or brutalized and arrested during their meetings. Many have been
arrested, detained, tortured and paraded as criminals for canvassing their self
determination agenda. In January 2013, following the shocking discovery of ‘over
30 dead bodies’ floating
in Ezu river in Anambra State,
members of MASSOB and civil society groups in Anambra State have accused the
Special Anti Robbery Squad (SARS), an anti robbery
unit of the Anambra State Police Command of secretly killing persons in its
custody and throwing their dead bodies into the river. MASSOB has claimed that
among the victims whose dead bodies were found
floating in Ezu river
were 9 of its members who were arrested during a raid of their meeting place in
Onitsha, Anambra State in November 2012 by a joint task force of military,
police and secret police who later handed them over to SARS. In the past,
NOPRIN researchers have uncovered secret shallow graves where victims of
extrajudicial killings were secretly buried by the police in Anambra State.
Human Rights Watch asserts,
and in my humble view, correctly, that ‘the failure of Nigeria’s government to
address the widespread poverty, corruption, police abuse, and longstanding
impunity for a range of crimes has created a fertile ground for violent
militancy. HRW estimates that since the end of military rule in 1999, more than
18,000 people have died in inter-communal, political, and sectarian violence.
The
majority of cases of abuse go uninvestigated and unpunished. The families of
the victims usually have no recourse to justice or redress. Many do not even
get to find out what exactly happened to their loved ones.
Only very few of
the total killings that occur on a daily basis are reported in the media. The
media appear to have become too accustomed to extrajudicial or summary killings
and lethargic to reporting each and every single incident. Human rights
monitors lack the skill and capacity to monitor and systematically document
incidents with a view to fully identifying the victims and perpetrators and
engaging government oversight agencies with a view to ensuring that victims secure remedies and perpetrators appropriately brought to account. Nigerian
Government has failed to fulfill its obligations under international human
rights standards to institute due diligence in ensuring effective
investigation, punishment and redress for human rights atrocities.
Failure to subject to trial and sanction
police and security officers implicated in human rights violation has created a
climate of impunity which protects perpetrators. As Human Rights Watch noted in
its 2005 report ‘Rest in Pieces’,
one of the fundamental problems with the police is that abuses are sanctioned
or even ordered from the top, i.e. from the most senior officials. The Nigerian
government has repeatedly expressed willingness to address the problems in the
criminal justice system, improve access to justice and reform the police. But
despite several ‘Presidential Committees on Police Reform in Nigeria’ in recent
years, which presented detailed recommendations for improvement, little has
been done. A review of the 1943 Police Act began in 2004, but the draft bill
has been pending since October 2006. Laws, regulations and codes of conduct to
protect human rights are not enforced.
Government’s response to public outcries
about particular crisis or security situation is to set up a new police reform
committee and once public outcry is doused, the report is shelved. Hence, since
2000 up to 2012 at least four police reform committees have been set up by successive
governments to reorganize and transform the police. But setting up police reform committees appears to have become a pretext for
government to evade responsibility and an avenue to distribute patronage and
waste public resources. Nigerian
political authorities endanger public safety by paying lip service to police
reform.
Civil society must,
on a continuous basis, promote accountability and respect for human rights. Civil
society organizations must continue to lead the charge in pushing Nigerian
government to implement genuine reforms. They must interrogate,
improve on- if need be, and intensify their advocacy strategies with a view to mobilizing
a sustainable public opinion against the culture of impunity, pushing the
government to wake up to its obligations to promote and protect human rights,
establishing a culture of respect for human rights within the police, ensuring
that victims and their families have access to justice, and putting an end to impunity for police and security officers.
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