Shoddy investigation of violent deaths

The international human rights watchdog, Amnesty International, has again carpeted Nigeria over shoddy investigation of violent deaths in the country. In its recent report entitled: “Nigeria: No Justice for the Dead,” Amnesty International observed that there are hundreds of killings by the Nigeria Police which were either never investigated or poorly investigated, giving rise to a situation where neither the dead nor their living relatives got justice at the end of the day.
The report also acknowledges that there is a medical practice in the country that makes doctors to sign death investigation reports of victims without bothering to either confirm what killed them or even seeing the corpses at all. Amnesty International which based most of its conclusions on a study of killings in Rivers State said that “basic techniques of crime scene protection and investigation are not applied and autopsies and inquests are either not carried out or are inadequate.
” The report decried the treatment of dead bodies at Braithwaite Memorial Specialist Hospital in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, where dead bodies are merely dumped on the floor or even corridors of the mortuaries. According to the report, “in many cases, the identity of the deceased is not known to the police and bodies are registered as ‘unknown’ while little effort is made by police to identify them.” Amnesty International’s Deputy Director for Africa, Lucy Freeman, said: “to have one of your friends or family members killed by the authorities causes terrible anguish, but never to find out the truth of what actually happened to them causes a particular agony for relatives of the victims.
” The body points out that “many of the victims killed by the police each year may have been unlawfully killed, including in what constitutes extra-judicial executions.” What Amnesty International has said on poor investigation of murder cases in Nigeria is a further confirmation of what most Nigerians already know about the situation. It is, indeed, sad and shameful that the security agencies, especially the police, have proved incapable of investigating violent deaths in Nigeria.
Victims of such deaths still crying for justice include frontline journalist, Dele Giwa, former Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Chief Bola Ige, industrialist, Alfred Rewane, Engr Funso Williams, Chief Harry Marshal and others too numerous to mention. Despite many promises by the government and the police authorities that they will open and probe all unresolved murders, nothing has so far shown that they are serious on the matter. Rather more Nigerians are still being killed in questionable circumstances. The most recent being the bizarre discovery of about 40 floating male corpses on Ezu River in Awka North Local Government Area of Anambra State. We, therefore, call on the police authorities and those in charge of the judiciary to do something about shoddy investigation of violent deaths in the country.
The Nigerian authorities should not wait for rights group such as Amnesty International to remind them of the need to properly investigate murder cases. Sweeping such matters under the carpet as it is the usual practice in this part of the world is not helpful. Besides being a neglect of the victims of such crimes against the state, it is an indictment of the nation’s criminal justice system. It is also a confirmation of the decay of the police investigative arm, which apparently lies prostrate in the face of many unresolved murders.
It is also apparent that most high profile murders in Nigeria are unresolved simply because government has not shown enough political will to investigate them. Therefore, let government muster enough courage to prosecute such cases. If the perpetrators of such violent deaths are apprehended and brought to book, it will deter others from indulging in such dastardly acts.
SUN