The Urgent Need To Change The Culture Of Policing In Nigeria By Okechukwu Nwanguma

Thirteen years following the
restoration of democratic processes
in Nigeria with the general elections
of 1999 after 16 uninterrupted years
of military dictatorship, 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.