Checking police killings
Arase
SINCE persistent public outrage has failed to stem the tide of extra-judicial killings by the police, a thorough prosecution and sanction of police personnel found guilty of murder is definitely one of the drastic measures the nation must take now. This step was taken in Rivers State recently when a court sentenced a policeman, Inspector Samuel Timothy , to death by hanging for killing citizen Onyekachi Nwasouba .
A graduate of chemistry, Nwasouba was forced by unemployment into the production and distribution of sachet water. It was on one of his trips to distribute the product that the convict who led a patrol team pursued Nwasouba to the front of his house. He shot him dead despite his protest that he was not a robber. That shooting of Nwasouba in 2010 is about one of many. Before 2010 and since then, police personnel have been involved in reckless and brutal killings of innocent citizens. This tragic proclivity of the police was captured in 2008 by Amnesty International. In a report entitled “ Nigeria police kill at will”, the global watchdog documented cases of torture and shooting of suspects.
These brutalities are often meted out to the citizens, under different guises. The police personnel shoot at citizens who fail to oblige them a bribe on demand. This could be as little as N100. In the case of Godwin Ekpo, a tricycle operator, his wife was shot dead after he refused to give a policeman a bribe of N2,000 he had demanded. Ekpo , his wife and four children were returning from church on a Sunday in Lagos when the family came under fire. While he survived, his wife died.
Thus rather than protect the citizens the police have turned their guns on Nigerians. Therefore, there is the urgent need to make the Nigeria Police personnel revert to their primary duty of protecting the citizens. To be sure, the leadership of the Nigeria Police may have tried at different times to instill discipline and steer men and officers from the path of routine killings of innocent citizens. But such efforts have not been too successful. For instance, even though different inspectors-general of police have warned their officers against mounting roadblocks, this practice continues. In fact, most of the extortions and extra-judicial killings take place at illegal roadblocks mounted by police personnel.
The police need re-orientation from their fixation on violence. Such re-orientation should begin at the point of recruitment when emphasis should be placed on character. But this has not been possible over the years because the recruiters who ought to administer the character test are themselves sometimes worse in corruption than the recruits. Sad tales of applicants who pay bribes in order to be enlisted into the police are commonplace. Even though some of the personnel have university degrees, they need re-education; and their values should be changed through regular trainings. The culture of brutality against citizens is so deeply entrenched that all the different units of the police are guilty of it: the regular police, mobile police , traffic police, among others. New curricula in police training schools should reflect the ethos of the society, the importance of Nigeria in the life of a police officer, contentment, character and a well-defined guiding philosophy of the country.
One way the police can check the escalation of the men’s proclivity for violence is to restrict the use of arms to special units and those who deal with the public should not be allowed to carry arms indiscriminately. Those who deal with the public should be trained in unarmed combat and the use of communication technology as well as less-lethal weapons like pepper spray. In this regard, they would only need to send for reinforcement from their armed colleagues in situations they cannot handle without arms.
Brutality most times involves the rank and file but it is obvious that the culture of impunity in the police has been sustained by the complicity of the superiors. In most cases, it is the divisional police officers and even higher authorities that shield their junior officers from investigation and prosecution. And in many cases, these superior officers are known to share from the reward of the crime of their junior officers. Thus for a change of values to be effective in the police, senior officers must model good behaviour, sanction their erring officers, end the era of shielding men and maintain core values of policing.
The welfare package of the police as it exists today is certainly not an incentive for optimal performance. The police personnel are poorly remunerated and some even pay for their own uniforms and kits. The inadequate funds that the government makes available for their welfare are further fraudulently depleted by some superior officers. In the rare cases where they are accommodated in barracks, the living conditions are deplorable. And because they are few compared to the population, they are overworked. All these conditions imbue the rank and file with a psychology that sees the citizens as their enemies. In this regard, the government should ensure that the police personnel are properly kitted, well remunerated and their post-retirement welfare fully guaranteed.
Ultimately, for the country to get effective policing, it must embrace true federalism and the police must be decentralised.
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5 Comments
So, policemen tell the citizens, ” Na because of una we dey suffer.” After that, they would pull the trigger. Gboza. Gboza. Gboza. What could kill 10 elephants, they would use it to kill one innocent person. But why policewomen no dey do that?
Abi no be the same profession them they do with men? Make una ask dem.
Yes, in as much as the police and law enforcement agents in general should be taken good care of, justice demands that they should first of all discharge their duties well and conscientiously to attract the sympathy of the citizenry and the government. It does not necessary go the other way round; meaning that they should not begin to kill or brutalize the citizens so as to attract sympathy towards the deplorable state of their living conditions. After all, poor laborers and farmers across the world still turn out huge farm produces as well as staples for nations and continents despite their poor living conditions. They have not resorted to poisoning anybody in order to attract sympathy. With this write up, I will continue to call upon the President to order investigation into the kidnap and murder of Mr. Emmanuel Chukwuemeka Udemba. Mr. Udemba was kidnapped on March 21, 2012 and murdered and no one has done anything to investigate it. All that they did was to show the family his corpse on July 10, 2015 after three years of virtually a zero-commitment to investigate his disappearance. Isn’t this hard to imagine? Of course a lot of games were played along the line by some law enforcement agents and still being played on the same kidnap and murder case till today. Who will now come to the help of this suffering family in the country? Whom will they turn to for help? How can a crime of that sort stop in Nigeria where no one has, up till now, investigated his kidnap and murder case so as to get to the masterminds and sponsors of this heinous crime as widely being suspected. In this particular case, every evidence is still there to finish this job but people, for some reasons, those who should have investigated it have remained non-committal. I learnt that appeals, both public and private, have been abundantly made and still being made to every imaginable quarter in the country yet nothing has been done to fish out the sponsors and masterminds of this man’s kidnap and murder. This keeps me still wondering which way we are heading to because people who planned and committed this atrocity in Anambra state are still roaming about in the country while a family is suffering endlessly. I learnt that Mr. Udemba’s corpse is still at the local mortuary because the family is still confused as to what to do because of continued insecurity of their lives and property in Anambra state. Imagine what will keep happening if the Federal Government of Nigeria does not intervene in this critical situation because there is a big issue that a lot of people who should have done the probing job may either have been compromised or bought over. Again, please let the Federal Government look into this serious matter .
We all know that the Nigerian Police have no reputation that is worthy of emulation. They are totally useless at fighting crime, rudderless at investigating minor crimes or serious crimes, woefully impotent at tackling the scourge kidnapping, unprofessional with their top echelons often partners at perverting the course of justice, and they are very clinical at extorting pittance from law –breakers and letting them off scotch-free, they are very good at shooting first and asking questions later, they are very clever at concealing their mischievous tracks and lying with all guns blazing. They are not trust worthy. “Nigeria police kill at will” and relentlessly lie to cover their lawless actions. The litany of shoot to kill actions as shown in this report is only a tip of the iceberg. It is now well known fact that the Nigeria police brutalities in hands of innocent Nigerians are often dished out to the defenceless citizens under different flimsy guises. You can say goodbye to your precious life by arguing with a trigger-happy ‘officer’ because you refused to part with a paltry N50.00. Hence you are dead; they will frame you as the most wanted criminal since Anini and Oyewusi’s reign of terror. This is
why every peace loving Nigerian should today stand up and applaud the landmark court ruling in River State that sentenced a policeman, Inspector Samuel Timothy, to death by hanging for killing citizen Onyekachi Nwasouba in cold –blood. Let’s not shovel under the carpet, the gruesome murder of Godwin Ekpo’s wife. The tricycle operator’s wife was shot dead after he refused to give a policeman a bribe of N2, 000 he had demanded. Ekpo, his wife and FOUR children were returning from church on a Sunday in Lagos when the family came under fire. Is there any conceivable excuse for this murder? What sort of a country can tolerate this culture of brazen lawlessness and extra-judicial killings with latitude,
in the hands of those entrusted by law to maintain peace, protect lives and properties and tackle crimes? It is scary beyond description.
What the Nigerian policemen do is called armed robbery and if you resist the robbery, you get killed. It can never be justified by poor remuneration or anything else. Nigeria is evil and must be dissolved.
Plice has jone forcesses with armd robers no one is save now
We will review and take appropriate action.