Human rights group puts Nigeria police in the dock over bribery, illegal killing and other abuses.
Human Rights Watch
Fews day after Nigeria’s Inspector General of Police, Ogbonaiya Onovo told an interactive session of discussants that Nigeria police serve politicians rather than people of Nigeria, an international Human Rights Group has put the nations police in the dock for abuse of power and negligence and high level corrupt practices.
According to ‘Human Rights Watch’, permeating corruption in the Nigerian police force, from armed officers extorting money at checkpoints to top officials embezzling public funds is fuelling abuses and depriving people of security.
Institutionalized extortion, lack of political will to reform the force and top shots in the force enjoying impunity mean Nigerians are more likely to encounter police oppression and subjugation and wanton threat and arrest while demanding bribes rather than the force enforcing law and order and providing security and safety the citizens.
Ogbonaiya Onovo
The disgraceful reports of the x-tray of atrocities committed by Africa’s most populous nation and one of the worlds leading oil producers were contained in ‘Human Rights Watch’ contained in a 102-page report which was launched on Tuesday.
“Good policing is the bedrock for the rule of law and public safety,” said Corinne Dufka, senior West Africa researcher at the New York-based rights group.
“The long-term failure of the Nigerian authorities to address police bribery, extortion, and wholesale embezzlement threatens the basic rights of all Nigerians”, Dufka continued.
In major cities across Africa’s most populous nation, including the commercial hub Lagos and capital Abuja, armed police set up checkpoints every evening ostensibly to control high levels of crime, including armed robbery and kidnapping.
But the checkpoints are in reality tolls at which officers attempt to force motorists to pay money — sometimes grinning, Kalashnikov in hand, and asking:”anything for the boys?” but frequently becoming more aggressive.
Nigerian police
“Extortion-related confrontations between the police and motorists often escalate into more serious abuses,” the report, based on interviews with more than 145 victims, said.
“The evidence suggests that police officers have on numerous occasions severely beaten, sexually assaulted, or shot to death ordinary citizens who failed to pay bribes demanded.”
Senior officers have institutionalised extortion by establishing a system in which rank-and-file officers are compelled to pay up the chain of command the money they make at checkpoints, the rights group said.
The report also pinpointed that serving police officers and former officers interviewed claimed that police men had to pay to be given a “lucrative posting”, such as a checkpoint in a wealthy neighbourhood, where they are given daily or weekly financial targets and are punished if they fail to meet them.
The rights group also said senior officers were accused of embezzling “staggering sums” of public money meant for the force, leaving it with limited capacity to investigate crime and its forensic laboratories at a “near standstill”.
“We get none of what we need to do our job … pens, complaint sheets, we buy. Bail bond sheets, we buy. Fuel, we buy it,” the report quoted one police sergeant as saying.
Endemic corruption meant only those who could afford to pay were helped by the police for promotion and lucrative checkpoint postings, the report said.
“Crime victims are routinely forced to pay the police to conduct every stage of an investigation from the moment they enter a police station to report the crime until the day their case is handed on for prosecution,” it said.
“Those with no means to pay are left without justice.”
Members of the wealthy elite pay to contract out police officers as private protection squads.
Wealthy Nigerians escorted by a truck of armed police, often willing to beat anyone who gets in their way, are a common sight across the country and police usage as shield for politicians are viewed as a status symbol by some residents, despite efforts by local authorities to ban such convoys.
“Successive Nigerian administrations who have acknowledged many of the problems described in the report and have set up panels and committees to examine and make recommendations for police reform,” Human Rights Watch said.
Police spokesman Emmanuel Ojukwu said Tuesday’s report contains “largely embellished innuendoes” and had reached a preconceived conclusion. In an article posted to the force’s website Saturday, Ojukwu had criticized corrupt officers.
“It does not need much sermonizing for an officer to know that extortion is bad,” the spokesman wrote. “You need not visit a university to be lectured that torture is wicked and evil and that man’s inhumanity to man is an offense before God. … But we kill the police by engaging in such acts.”
Police Inspector General, Onovo last week–end agreed during a police –civilian interactive session that more services are given to politicians who seek protection for fear of molestation and shield from underworld men than providing the traditional surety and safety for the people. Over 25 per cent of the police strength in Nigeria are directed to serve the politicians.
However, a legal practitioner reacting to the report downgraded the effect of the report which he claimed had been spot –on on the situation in the country.
“It is certain that the report like many others in the past may not have any effect as many of the officers are not likely to informed of the implications of the report”
According to London based Bayo Egunlae, poverty and lack of provided information to the erring officers continuously bring the force to international ridicule.
He said that the effect of such reports are not felt by the officers due to lack of information getting to those officers in the wake of lack of electricity for the dissemination of such informations.
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