Worried by the rising cases of brutality, corruption and abuse of the rights of Nigerians by the operatives of the Nigeria Police Force (NPF), the Network on Police Reform in Nigeria (NOPRIN) has organized a one day public tribunal for Southern Nigeria in Owerri, the Imo State Capital.
Speaking in his welcome address, the National Coordinator of the group, Mr. Okechukwu Nwanguma explained that the public hearing was part of NOPRIN project, with support from TrustAfrica, aimed at promoting law enforcement accountability, transparent and responsible policing and respect for human rights and rule of law.
Nwanguma noted that since 2008, NOPRIN had been organizing Public Tribunals across Nigeria’s six geopolitical zones as part of its advocacy strategies to mobilize public opinion against the culture of impunity.
He added that the group also sought to use the tribunal to sensitize and assist police oversight agencies to fulfill their statutory oversight and disciplinary mandates more effectively and timely saying that by providing opportunity for victims and survivors of police abuse and law enforcement atrocities to testify before a panel of eminent Nigerians and to seek redress through internal control systems and external accountability mechanisms, the tribunal also helped to highlight the patterns and prevalence of human rights abuse by the police and other security and law enforcement agencies in Nigeria.
According to him, “It is expected that the reports emanating from this Tribunal, when shared with oversight agencies, would awaken them to their obligations under national and international human rights laws to effectively investigate human rights violations and ensure justice for victims, survivors, perpetrators and society”.
The National Coordinator stated that the public hearing was coming at a time when, across Nigeria, public outrage had reached a crescendo over the escalating spate of police extrajudicial killings and abuse of police power adding that Police extrajudicial killing in Nigeria had assumed epidemic proportion.
“Today, we will hear cases about how the police will take a man into custody over a land dispute, a purely civil matter, detain and deny the man access to family and lawyers only for him to die in custody and the police would claim he committed suicide in police cell.
“We will hear shocking and unbelievable tales of blatant police abuse of power, oppression, corruption and various forms of criminality.
“In the more recent case of police extrajudicial killing in Lagos, the police officer was reported to have shot the young man over refusal to give bribe at what appeared to be an illegal check point. Believing he was dead, and in an apparent bid to cover up his heinous crime of murder, he also shot, killing the victim’s female partner who was with him in the vehicle.
“The promptness and decisiveness with which the Commissioner of Police, Lagos State, responded to both cases of Johnson and the most recent case of Adaobi are welcome and commendable. He visited and commiserated with both families and assured them and the public of the police’s non tolerance of abuse of police powers and committed to ensuring that the perpetrators are appropriately punished according to the law.
“The police officers responsible for the killings of Johnson and Adaobi were promptly arrested while the one in the team who murdered Adaobi and fled was declared wanted. Those arrested have been subjected to internal disciplinary procedures, dismissed and handed over for prosecution for murder. We expect that their trial would be pursued to a logical conclusion until they are convicted and sentenced to appropriate punishment. This is necessary to send a clear message to other police officers of their ilk that abuse of police powers and reckless killing of citizens will no longer be tolerated and that perpetrators would not escape justice”, he said.
While recalling that in the past, cases of police atrocities had been swept under the carpet after public outrage died down, he however admitted that the Commissioner of Police Lagos State and the Inspector General of Police had both expressed determination to see to the logical resolution of those cases to ensure justice and check impunity.
He continued,” Sanctions ought to deter further infractions. But we have seen these killings happen again and again despite after the actions taken by the Lagos State Police command against the killers of Johnson. This then takes me to the question as to what will prompt a police officer to so mindlessly open fire on unarmed fellow citizens. Are these officers under any drug or alcohol influence? Does this speak to the quality of personnel that populate the junior rank of the Nigeria Police and by extension the recruitment process that brought them into the Nigeria Police in the first place? When Abayomi Shogunle, the Head of the Police Complaints Response Unit (CRU) says that citizens should address police officers in Pidgin English, was he unwittingly admitting the low quality of personnel who populate the NPF? There is evidence that majority of Police officers, especially among the junior ranks, are unfit and represent threats to citizens’ safety and security.
“No doubt, many police officers feel protected by the reign of impunity enthroned by failure to appropriately punish killings. No single police killing which happened under former IGP Idris Kpotun received the level of attention and action being witnessed under the current IGP Adamu”.
Suggesting measures to end Police brutality, corruption and abuse, Nwanguma observed, “A necessary step to bringing an end to the spate of Police killings is to ensure that the perpetrators are brought to account. Investigations must be transparent and effective, and the perpetrators subjected to criminal trial. The victims’ families are also entitled to adequate remedies. Police oversight agencies must be alive to their mandate of ensuring discipline and accountability for police violation of human rights.
“There is the urgent need for an audit of personnel to identify, isolate and weed out those who were not even qualified in the first place to be recruited: those who found their way into the police through crooked means- the circumvention of the process; those who are mentally and psychologically unfit, undisciplined, and constitute threats to citizens’ safety.
“There is also the need to review the recruitment process, including the qualification criteria and ensure strict compliance with laid down criteria and guideline so that misfits will no longer easily find their way into the police as has been the case. Appropriate training for officers, including on arms handling, is urgent to check misuse of firearms and others abuses which result to killings.
“There is the need to address welfare deficit in the police. Radical improvement in police welfare is a means to fight corruption and humanize the police. Without adequate funding, police cannot meet their dire welfare and operational needs and this will continue to predispose them to resort to crude and brutal means of policing and crime investigation which entails violence, torture and killing of citizens whom they are charged to serve and protect.
“The Police Reform Bill addresses many of these challenges and proposes solutions to them. We have a duty to push for the passage of that Bill by the HOR and its urgent assent by the President. The Bill will provide a new legal framework to drive police reform, regulate and engender a modern, motivated, and effective police in a democratic society and provide a legal basis to hold the police to account”.
Send your news, press releases/articles to augustinenwadinamuo@yahoo.com. Also, follow us on Twitter @ptreporters and on Facebook on facebook.com/primetimereporters or call the editor on 07030661526, 08053908817.
