ENDING TORTURE IN NIGERIA
Security operatives must act within the law
In a damning report, the United Nations has highlighted the inadequacy of measures to end torture and ill-treatment of detainees in Nigeria, especially in police stations and other facilities of security forces. “The situation in most places of detention is abysmal. Legal safeguards must be immediately implemented, and the current impunity of perpetrators for acts of torture must end,” said Shujune Muhammed who headed the UN Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture (SPT) which recently visited the country, and assessed detention centres for men, women, and children, as well police stations, and criminal investigation departments. “We were confronted with a climate of hostility and faced access issues in several places of detention.”
Since the report only reinforces a vicious cycle of violence currently taking place in the country, the authorities must deal with it. Nigerians are familiar with several cases of ill-treatments, torture of suspects by police operatives which had resulted in wanton loss of lives. Despite the high-level rhetoric on police reform, particularly after the EndSARS protests, no concrete actions have been taken. Last year, the Inspector General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun, disbanded a police team in Ekpoma, Edo State, caught in a viral video running over a handcuffed man with their patrol vehicle. According to the police, the middle-aged man was driving an unregistered car and demanded the vehicle particulars. Others stated that the man was brutalised over his refusal to allow the police to access his mobile phones. In the aftermath, the victim was left with several bruises on his body. “I don’t think a normal human being can do this. To crush a man with a car? This is unbelievable. We need to take urgent action on this,” Force spokesperson, Olumuyiwa Adeyobi, said at the time.
Section one of the “Anti-Torture Act” imposes an obligation on the government and law enforcement agencies to ensure that all persons, including suspects, detainees and prisoners are always respected and that no person under investigation or held in custody is subjected to any form of physical or mental torture. Yet, our security operatives are notorious for physical assaults on suspects in the bid to extract information or to subdue them. The indiscriminate use of brutal force creates a vicious cycle and draws attention to the deficiencies in our security architecture in terms of training and operational tools for personnel.
The root of these violations is an embarrassing ignorance on the part of security operatives of the basic rights of citizens in a democratic society. This newspaper has said repeatedly that we stand by our security agencies because we believe what their personnel do is a dangerous job as they confront the brutalities that the rest of society only imagine or watch on television from the comfort of their homes. But there must be reforms in terms of professionalism and structure, so that they can sustain the capacity to carry out their constitutional responsibility of maintaining law and order with accountability.
Treating people with contempt, hostility, or applying excessive force does not in any way advance the cause of law enforcement. Across the country, many citizens are molested and brutalised by the police, soldiers and sundry security personnel who carry on their duties with impunity. No matter the extent of provocation, a person in uniform must not resort to taking the law into their own hands. Government must deal with the impression that those who carry arms on behalf of the state are licensed to act above the law.
