Yemisi Izuora
Victims of Police harassment and illegal detention told their stories at a media forum organised by the Network on Police Reform in Nigeria, NOPRIN, in to highlight series of abuse reports by innocent citizens by Police.
The meeting was also a forum by the Network to further canvass for passage of the police Reform Bill before the expiration of the present Assembly.
Okey Nwanguma national coordinator of NOPRIN, in his opening remarks wondered why abuse and corruption had persisted, despite reforms that had been undertaken by government to give new face to the Police.
Nwanguma, sadly noted that mong other reasons, Police Officers excuse corruption, abuse and misconduct on neglect and poor welfare conditions: poor working and living conditions, as officers injured or killed on duty are abandoned.
He said some others see that they have no hope of being taken care of and that their families will also be abandoned to suffer if they die on dutyband then do what they can do to help themselves in the immediate and will not put in their best.
He said others would argue that when distress calls are made, officers would not want to put their lives at risk for a system that will not care for them or their families and as such the reforms have not changed the inherited colonial, culture of violence and corruption
and people join the police with the motive to make money and don’t see the police as a career path
He observed that due to lack of funds for operations, officers resort to extortion to generate funds and senior officers sending out junior officers to make money and targets are set and returns are expected.
“This explains why public complaints and internal disciplinary systems don’t function effectively because offenders are shielded by the system except in few cases when pressure comes from certain quarters and people are sacrificed just to put up a show that the police don’t condone crime and corruption”, he said.
Narrating her ordeal at the meeting, Miss Odera Okakpu, said she was arrested alongside her cousin on the 28 of December 2018, while returning home at about 11.30pm.
“We went to charge phone nearby the house and while coming back an unmarked vehicle with male occupants stopped and ordered us to get inside. We resisted them because they were on mufty and nothing to identify them as police.
We continued to shout as they beat us, and I called one of my cousins again to come to our rescue and when he arrived they won’t listen to him. They overpowered us and took us to Ajah police station and framed us as call girls.
I told them that I am a freelance journalist but after intervention of another officer they allowed us to go at 1am”.
In his own case, a photo journalist, Yinka Badmus said he was arrested where he was eating.
He said the police team was running after some boys but accosted him and took him to their station.
“It was on 31 of December in Suru Lere while I was eating around my area around 11pm. Two of the officers approached me and one slapped me that I use my camera to harass people, I told them who I am but they will not listen.
They drove us to their station and put us inside the cell. On January, 1, 2019, we were moved because I refused to pay N50,000 bribe and was charged to court on January 5, and that is where they told me am being arraigned because of my hairstyle.
Going forward, Nwanguma, urged the National Assembly to pass the pending Police Reform Bill to provide a legal framework to drive police reform.
” The bill addresses many of the problems highlighted and makes provision to address them. The police and executive should work with the national assembly to ensure the quick passage of the bill before the end of the current legislative calendar. Civil society and media should lead the charge in pushing for the passage of the bill. The President should assent to the bill when passed, as evidence of genuine commitment to police reform.” he urged.
He said their is a sustained campaign to ensure the Bill is given priority.
Nwanguma, recalled that on Saturday, March 23, the BBC Media Action held a Town Hall Meeting in Lagos on the Nigeria Police Reform Bill, where a cross Section of Nigerians made up the audience and there was a panel to discuss the subject.
The meeting started with many participants narrating chilling accounts of their horrendous experience with officers of the Nigeria Police Force, he said, adding that the stories ranged from illegal stop and search operations which target mainly young people who are profiled, harassed and subjected to illegal and intrusive bodily searches- including unauthorised search on their personal items- phones, wallets, laptop and laptop bags, etc., based on unfounded allegations that they are ‘Yahoo Yahoo’, cultists, kidnappers, prostitutes, etc.
“We also heard of cases of what appeared more like abduction of people by police officers. When police officers fail to identify or introduce themselves as police officers and simply order people into their vehicles; how do you then distinguish police officers from kidnappers?
Anti-Cultism Officers engaging in raids and indiscriminate arrest and detention of young men in the pretext of clamping down on cultism only to end up extorting money and in some cases arraigning innocent people in court on unfounded, malicious charges, for not cooperating by paying bribe for their freedom.” he said.
Before this Town Hall, NOPRIN had documented reports from various states which show the prevalence of different types and forms of human rights violation.
He noted that while some of the abuses are specific to particular states or geopolitical zones, others are widespread and occur in virtually every state.
The main human rights issues and concerns documented are, ubiquitous road blocks and checkpoints (more prevalently in the Southeast) which are no more than avenues for extortion, harassment, unlawful detention and sometimes resulting to extrajudicial killing, which is found in every major road and street in the States of the Southeast
Others are profiling, illegal stop and search operations that violate right to privacy particularly targeting young men who are either accused by the police of being ‘Yahoo Yahoo’ (advance fee fraud) or of being cultists, sometimes simply on account of their hairstyle. Lagos, Anambra, Edo etc.