Curbing Extra-Judicial Killings In Nigeria

Curbing Extra-Judicial Killings In Nigeria

By Okechukwu Nwanguma

 “EXTRAJUDICIAL killing in the police remains a shocking common occurrence,” Eric Guttschuss, Human Rights Watch researcher for Nigeria, was quoted in a BBC report in May 2009, four years after the June 7 and 8, 2005 cold-blooded murder of five young male traders and a female student (the Apo six) by the police in Abuja. Eight years after this most infamous case of extrajudicial killing in Nigeria’s history, the criminal trial of the identified killer-police officers has gone nowhere. Families of the victims appear to have given up hope for justice, especially after the prime suspect was granted bail in 2006 by the trial Judge, Justice Isyaku Bello, on dubious health grounds. Othman Abdulsalam, the then DPO of Garki Police Station where they were killed, also ‘escaped’ from police custody and has remained at large till date. The Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial executions, in his report, said: “If the Apo 6 were an isolated incident, it would be a tragedy and a case of a few bad apples within the police force. “Unfortunately, many of the ingredients – the false labelling of people as armed robbers, the shooting, the fraudulent placement of weapons, the attempted extortion of the victims’ families, the contempt for post-mortem procedures, the falsified death certificates, and the flight of an accused senior police officer – are all too familiar occurrences.” In 2009, Amnesty International (AI) reported that hundreds are killed each year by the Nigeria Police Force (NPF), or disappear while in custody, and few police officers are held accountable. In most cases, there is no investigation into the deaths in custody, extrajudicial executions or enforced disappearances.

Police Hierarchy Acknowledges The Problems

EIGHT years after the Apo 6 killing, not a great deal has changed. In January this year, the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Mohammed Dikko Abubakar, then acting IGP, admitted publicly that the “Police is corrupt and it commits extrajudicial killings.”

Among others, he singled out the Special Anti-Robbery Squads (SARS) as having “become killer teams engaging in deals for land speculators and debts collection…”

He warned: “As Police, we must take into cognizance, the fundamental human rights of every citizen, which must not be infringed upon, so as to gain the confidence of the public.”

In spite of the IGP’s oft-repeated sermons and admonition to officers, extrajudicial killings by police (and personnel of other law enforcement and security agencies) remain a routine and the list of unresolved cases continues to grow day after day.

Daily news and documented reports have been consistent in returning damning verdicts on the state of human rights performance by Nigerian governments since the return to civil rule in 1999, with every successive report singling out the Nigerian Police as the worse violator of human rights.

 Sample Recent Cases

IN February this year, the Network on Police Reform in Nigeria (NOPRIN) expressed serious concern over the never-ending incidents of extrajudicial killings by law enforcement and security agents in Nigeria.

It condemned, in particular, the February 25 alleged gruesome murder of two students and grievous injury on four other students of Nasarawa State University by soldiers and policemen.

Owing to the buck-passing on this killing between the police and the soldiers, NOPRIN called for a judicial panel of inquiry to unravel those responsible, so that they could be brought to account and the families of the victims adequately compensated.

 In Retrospect, Founded Fears

THE fears of the family are not unfounded, as the police have in many past instances employed some gimmicks to shield perpetrators from justice.

Back in 2006, another female DPO, then at Fegge Police Division in Onitsha, Anambra State tried to compound felony by covering up a police corporal, Daniel Ayuba, who shot dead a lady, Nkechi Obidigwe, at a police checkpoint somewhere along Zik’s Avenue in the town.

The truth later emerged when at the intervention of the then Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) at State CID in Awka, the state capital, an impartial investigation was carried out, following a petition by the family members and public outrage it generated, which led to the identification of the killer cop, who indeed, confessed during an orderly room trial to the crime.

The DPO had earlier denied that her men were responsible and claimed that it was members of the Movement for the Actualisation of a Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) that shot the girl.

Three officers at the checkpoint were fished out, arrested and detained, while an autopsy revealled that a police bullet AK47 killed the victim.

But the DPO continued to deny and even attempted to intimidate the family until a ballistic examination confirmed that the bullet was from a police gun and the three officers were subjected to orderly room trial.

The particular officer that fired the shot later owned up, was charged for murder and remanded in Onitsha Prison.

The DPO was not made to face the legal consequences of her misconduct, but was immediately posted out of Fegge Police Station.

 Not The Police Alone…

IT is not only the police that have been engaged in this, as personnel of other uniformed services – the Army, Navy, Air Force and even paramilitary agencies – are also occasionally involved in use of excessive force and extrajudicial killings.

The 2011 reprisal attack in which soldiers from 242 Battalion in Ibereko, along Lagos-Badagry Expressway, ambushed and murdered Saliu Samuel (CSP), the DPO of Badagry Police Division and his District Crime Officer (DCO) on their way to the barracks on a peace mission, is one recent example of a pattern of reprisal killing by members of the armed forces.

 Culture Of Cover Up And Stalling…

BUT it appears the culture of cover up of crimes and stalling of prosecution is entrenched more within the Nigeria Police than in other uniformed services.

Comparing the above three cases (the Apo 6, the Benin and Onitsha killings) with similar cases in which personnel of the armed forces are involved in misconduct and abuse makes this obvious, the case of Lieutenant Felix Olanrenwaju Odunlami being an example.

 The Will To Check Impunity

ALTHOUGH the case of one Okechukwu Agu, which happened in 2009 in Enugu, did not result in death, but permanent disability, it nonetheless underscores the comparative willingness by military authorities, as opposed to police authorities, to investigate and punish abuse and misconduct by their personnel, which is essential to deter and check impunity.

The then 70-year-old Agu was brutalised and rendered blind by an army officer, one Sgt Ogar attached to 82 Division of the Nigerian Army for ‘blocking his way.’

Today, the soldier is facing trial in an Enugu High Court after he was court-marshalled and dismissed from service.

Judgment is due to be delivered on this case any moment the trial judge gives a date.

 A Cheering Departure From The Pattern Of Stalling?

RECENT media reports indicate that Olusegun Fabunmi, the DPO in charge of Pen Cinema in Agege, Lagos, who shot one Ademola Aderinto during the January last year fuel subsidy protests has been dismissed from the police and facing prosecution in a Lagos High Court.

Since this incident occurred about 15 months ago, NOPRIN had issued a number of public calls seeking from the police hierarchy and the Police Service Commission (PSC) update on this case without any response.

If indeed, Fabunmi has been dismissed and now facing prosecution for murder, that will be a cheering and welcome departure from the pattern of stalling and indifference in the NPF in cases of serious violation such as this.

Usually, the police hierarchy would prolong ‘investigation’ and allow public attention to shift. At best, the affected police officer would be transferred, making it difficult to locate him/her in the system, and in the end, the investigating agencies would often give up.

It is curious that it took the PSC under Mr. Parry Osayande close to 15 months, just a few days to the end of its tenure, to decide on this serious violation during the commission’s plenary meeting held on April 3, this year in Abuja.

This failure by the PSC to discharge its constitutional mandate of enforcing discipline and accountability within the police accounts for the impunity that protects perpetrators.

It is encouraging that the Lagos State Office of the Public Defender is prosecuting Fabunmi at the Lagos High Court. It is hoped that this would not end up like the ‘Apo 6,’ in which the principal suspect ‘disappeared’ from police custody, and eight years after, not a single suspect has been effectively prosecuted and brought to account.

 Waiting For Justice Or Waiting In Vain?

ON September 20, last year, 36-year-old Ugochukwu Ozuah was shot and killed unlawfully, according to eyewitnesses, by a policeman five days after his wedding along the Gbagada Expressway in Lagos after dropping off a classmate at the junction.

His killers are yet to be brought to account, more than nine months after, despite promises by the IGP that the killers would be fished out and prosecuted.

Ugochukwu’s widow, Joan, and other members of his family are still awaiting the outcome of investigation by the special investigative team set up by the IGP to unravel the circumstances surrounding his death and bring the perpetrators to book.

“I can’t forget that fateful night of September 20, when the police shot you in the chest and left you to die in cold blood…’ Joan lamented in a tribute to her husband.

Stemming Rampant Police Killings: What To Do

FAILURE to bring perpetrators of abuse to account sustains the climate of impunity that encourages others to commit abuse.

There is the need to streamline the various internal disciplinary procedures in the NPF into a manageable framework that could easily be used by aggrieved citizens seeking redress for police misconduct, as well as using data emanating from such mechanisms in tracking police officials who are subjects of unusually high numbers of citizens’ complaints.

There is also the need to strengthen external oversight of the police. One of the principal external police oversight mechanisms is the PSC, which under the Constitution and the PSC Act of 2001 is an independent and impartial institution.

What we need is a civilian-led PSC that has the courage to investigate all public complaints and cases of police abuse, and appointing a retired IGP to head it undermines and subverts this mission and renders the PSC ultimately into another department of the NPF and defeats the whole essence of its establishment as a civilian oversight body on policing in Nigeria.

The United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteur on Summary Executions in the report of his mission to Nigeria in 2006 bemoaned that “…the Police Service Commission is charged with police discipline, but has opted to refer all complaints of extrajudicial killing back to the police for investigation.”

Force Order 237 authorises the use of firearms if a policeman cannot “by any other means, arrest or re-arrest any person, who is suspected or already has been convicted of an offence punishable by death or at least seven years imprisonment.”

This has often been used as justification by law enforcement agents to arbitrarily shoot to kill suspects, particularly those accused of capital offences.

There is the need to continue the process of reorienting the Nigeria Police away from the doctrine and mentality of the colonial and military era that emphasised force, violence and brutality, to a democratic mindset that emphasises service and partnership with the community they serve.

It is also impetrative to sanitise the recruitment process, adequately train, fund and equip the Police with modern crime intelligence and investigative infrastructure that would make resort to violence unwarranted, or at worse, a rare option.

It is also important to boost morale, discourage corruption and humanise the service by improving the conditions of service in the police.

The Nigeria Police as presently constituted is large and too unwieldy to be managed from the centre; hence it must be decentralised, depoliticised, professionalised and freed from undue political interference and control.

•Nwanguma is Programme and Advocacy Coordinator, Network on Police Reform in Nigeria (NOPRIN).