This follows a recent directive by Acting President, Prof Yemi Osinbajo for immediate overhaul of Police SARS in Nigeria as a measure to end atrocities arising from its activities. Most of the calls received by our leaders had sought for our informed position concerning the IGP’s so called “11-point reform package for Nigeria Police SARS”.
We respectfully wish to call on all Nigerians and
members of the international community not to be deceived again over the so
called “Police SARS reform” and insist on comprehensive reform not only for
Police SARS but also the entire Nigeria Police Force including its present
lopsided leadership composition. The IGP’s “11-point reform” is too hasty and a
fire brigade approach and can further be described as “11-point irrelevancies clothed
in armchair syndrome” as well as “bottling and corking of old wine in new
bottle”.
Any comprehensive and acceptable Police or Police SARS
reform in Nigeria must be that done by an independent committee of experts with
their recommendations popularly evaluated and approved by the Federal Executive
Council in addition to the governors’ inputs. Such reforms may be backed by an
Act of the National Assembly; to be done alongside domestication of relevant
international human rights instruments such as Conventions Against Torture and
Enforced Disappearances as well as criminalization of their prohibitions. To
save costs and time, recent years’ police reform documents done under the
previous civilian administrations in the country should be re-assembled, reviewed
and approved by FEC.
Specifically and as a matter of urgency, the name
“SARS” should be scrapped permanently from the lexicon of the Nigeria Police
Force and all operatives of Police SARS Department absolved into police
colleges and in-service re-orientation courses or training programs within the
Force for retraining and re-orientation. There shall be the return of new brand
of ICT empowered and retrained plain clothes crime detectives and intelligence
personnel to work hand in hand with existing operational and special police
squads for the purpose of tackling cases of kidnapping and armed robbery in the
country.
The only element worthy to be noted in the so called
“Police SARS reform” pronouncement of the present central Government of Nigeria
is the admission and acceptance by the same Government of responsibility for all the atrocities of
Police SARS in Nigeria. Aside the culpability admission, the so called
“11-point reform package” is a trash, sheer duplicity and escalation by
scientific or other means, of the atrocities of Police SARS in Nigeria.
From our critical evaluation of the so called
“11-point Police SARS reform”, it has been indisputably discovered that none of
the eleven measures is new because they have all been part and parcel of the
atrocious Police SARS in particular and the entire Nigeria Police Force in
general. For instance, Nigeria Police
Federal SARS has always been headed by a Commissioner of Police; likewise SARS
formations in the 36 States headed till date by CSPs or SPs. Collapsing all
Police SARS formations into the Federal
Police SARS is also nothing new because Police Force in Nigeria has always
remained a federal agency. It even amounts to stripping the State Governors of
their inputs and undermining their roles as CSOs especially when it comes to
who to be appointed as commander of Police SARS in a State.
Medical and psychological evaluation of all Police
SARS operatives announced as part of the
“11-point reform package” are nothing new; likewise redesigning of new uniform
and identity name tag. Disempowering Police SARS operatives from conducting
stop and search duties, except on distress call to respond to armed robbery and
kidnapping offences is the same thing as the latter; as the deadly operatives
have always claimed or justified same using the cover of “receiving distress
calls” or “suspicion of commission of armed robbery and kidnapping offenses”.
Establishment of human rights desk or conducting trainings for the operatives
in collaboration with rights CSOs is also not new and has been part and parcel
of Nigeria Police SARS; without significant impact in reducing or taming their
atrocious conducts.
Our critical evaluation has also found that in the
ongoing administrative and operational activities of the Police SARS, mushroom
rights CSOs or members of “Federal Government-CSO liaison” and activist-
supporters of the central Government and its members at the National Assembly
are indiscriminately and abusively used to legitimize the atrocities of the
murderous police squads, to the extent that
many, if not most top Police SARS officers and other top ranking police
personnel are routinely given “merit awards” as “OCs/Torture”.
Using the National Human Rights Commission as
presently constituted as a national platform to lodge and address industrial
scale human rights violations and abuses by the Police SARS is totally unacceptable
and nothing new in the so called “11-point Police SARS reform”. This is because
NHRC as a key victim of the regime
atrocities and “defection policy” of the
present Federal Government can no longer be trusted and respected, especially
when it has been mindlessly used by the authorities to cover atrocity or
humanity crimes perpetrated by some personnel of the same Nigeria Police Force
and those of the Nigerian Army against unarmed and defenseless Shiite Muslims
in Kaduna State and pro Biafra activists in old Eastern Nigeria; leading to
death of not less than 1600 citizens and physical impairment of over a thousand
others.
Also there is nothing new in the announcement of a new
standard operational guidelines and code of conduct for the so called “new
Federal Police SARS”. This is nothing but a fire brigade approach; likewise
promise of using the IGP’s X-squad (anti corruption/disciplinary) to monitor
the conducts of Police SARS. Apart from the integrity of the IGP and his office
being challenged on regular basis including unaddressed serious allegations of
graft practices and raging cases of police corruption on Nigerian roads, the
IGP’s X-squad only exists on paper. Cases abound where the same X-squad members
are reported to routinely smile to bank with criminal proceeds arising from
roadblock return culture.
Of the “eleven police reform blunders”, the worst of
them is the decision to locate or attach the Police SARS to the office of the
IGP and the Force Department in charge of Operations, presently headed by
DIG-OPS, DIG Joshak Habila. It must be remembered that DIG Joshak Habila
co-masterminded as Commissioner of Police, Abia State, the massacre of no fewer
than 30 unarmed and defenseless pro Biafra activists on 9th February 2016 when
the former gathered for prayers inside the premises of the National High
School, Aba in Abia State. It is also a common knowledge that motley of squads
attached to the office of the present IGP are hindered or encumbered by
duplicity, armchair syndrome, institutionalized extortion, unprofessionalism
and incompetence.
The announcement by the IGP of placement of Police
SARS under federal police operations is incoherent and unprofessional which
could lead to rising or escalated cases of out-station atrocities whereby
arrested, uninvestigated and untried citizens can be arrested operationally,
tortured or shot and killed operationally and dumped operationally in secret
locations. This is more so when patterns and trends of the operational
activities of the Nigerian security agencies especially since 2015 have been
marred with incessant or indiscriminate arrest, torture, killing and dumping
without traces, of Nigerian citizens in bushes and forests.
Instances include post Army Python Dance 11 discovery
of eight lifeless bodies in September 2017 inside an Umuahia forest and 38
decayed bodies just discovered inside a forest in Asa-Ogwe in Ukwa West LGA;
all of whom unarmed and defenseless pro Biafra activists and other innocent
travelers in Abia State. The above instances just represent one of such glaring
atrocities emanating from operational activities of the Nigerian security
forces including the Police SARS. The 46 slain defenseless citizens were shot
and killed by soldiers of 14 Brigade Ohafia, specifically drafted from 144
Battalion, Asa-Ogwe in Ukwa West LGA, near Aba in Abia State. They were all
shot and killed at Isialangwa and Asa-Ogwe Military Checkpoints located along
Umuahia-Aba-Port Harcourt Federal Road in Abia State.
In January 2013, Anambra Police SARS operatives dumped
no fewer than 50 lifeless bodies inside Ezu River in Awka South LGA, Anambra
State. Among them were those taken to the River alive at late night and shot
dead. They were strongly believed to have been forced to carry their slain
colleagues to the River, after which they were shot dead to erase traces.
Police SARS operatives in Nigeria have also earned notoriety in converting
minor infractions particularly civil disputes arising from inheritance, land,
business, property, leadership, marital and faith matters as well as
misdemeanors and other non capital offences into “offenses of kidnapping and
armed robbery”; especially when procured by members of questionable rich class
and political actors. The major motives behind the above are corruption or
criminal enrichment and abuse of power or authority.
Finally, it is our firm position that any
comprehensive and acceptable Police or Police SARS reform(s) in Nigeria must
provide answers or critically and comprehensively address the following
questions:
Why must torture especially physical impairment be
used by Police SARS operatives and the NPF generally to extract confessional
statements from custody suspects? Apart from torture and extra judicial or
unlawful killings, are there no other measures of processing or questioning
citizens suspected to be in conflict with capital offenses of armed robbery and
kidnapping? Why must citizens arrested
and detained in connection with the above named offenses be held without admin
bail or court trial beyond constitutional limits of 60 days? Must investigations
into all elements of crimes be concluded before arrested suspects are charged
to court of competent jurisdiction? Are processes of charging investigated
citizens in court of competent jurisdiction with conclusively investigated
crime elements and right to file motion(s) for the amended charges on a later
date for addition of those which investigations were concluded lastly no longer permissible or admissible in
Nigeria’s criminal laws?
Others are: Why must detained suspects be
indiscriminately denied access to good food and safe drinking water,
ventilation and medical care as well as their lawyers, wives and other family
members? Why must detained suspects be
arraigned in magistrate courts that lack jurisdiction in trying armed robbery
and kidnap offenses? Why must magistrate court remand orders be recklessly used
to keep the suspects in unconstitutional long detention to swell the ranks of
awaiting trial inmates in Nigeria?
Also: Are there no time limits to criminal
investigation in offenses of armed robbery and kidnapping in Nigeria? Why must magistrates and judges and the Nigerian Bar Association including
defense lawyers participate or preside over trial or arraignment of citizens
detained for three months, six months, one year, two years or more; or beyond
the constitutional limits without court
trial or administrative bail; contrary
to Section 35(4) of the Constitution? How mentally skilled and ICT compliant are
Police SARS operatives involved in crime intelligence, detection and investigation?
What mechanisms are put in place by Nigeria Police High Command to facilitate
periodic in-service and out-service training of Police SARS operatives in arts
of crime detection, intelligence and investigation in Nigeria?
The rest are: Crimes have not only become
sophisticated but also found their way into the moon, is the Nigeria Police
Force not unstoppably matching back to the cave or using pre-computer age
skills and tools to fight or control crimes of computer age in Nigeria? Key
motives behind torture and unlawful killings by Police SARS in the country have
been severally identified as corruption and abuse of power, how can these be
checkmated? What is the fate of Nigeria’s central crime lab or forensic
department, moribund or obsolete? Are there plans by the Nigeria Police Force
to engage several universities or expert policing intelligence and
investigation bodies within the country or beyond its shores in resource
borrowings and exchanges for the enhancement of its out-fashioned and archaic
crime detection, intelligence and investigation system?
Also in the list of the fundamental questions to
Nigerian Government are: Victimology is a branch of criminology and law dealing
with welfare and other issues related to victims of crime, what is its policy
or statutory direction in the so called Police SARS reform in Nigeria? The
perpetrators of Police SARS atrocities in the country especially in the past
three years have remained on the prowl and untouchable, what is their punitive
fate in the so called “Police SARS reform”? Can Police SARS or entire Police
reform in Nigeria be effective isolating domestication of important
international human rights instruments such as UN Conventions Against Torture
and Enforced Disappearances as well as criminalization of their prohibitions?
Signed
For: Int’l Society for Civil Liberties & the Rule
of Law
Emeka Umeagbalasi, Board Chairman
Mobile Line: +2348174090052
Email: [email protected]
Obianuju Joy Igboeli, Esq.
Email: [email protected]
Head, Civil Liberties & Rule of Law Program
New Bottled Old Wine: Unmasking Irrelevancies Called IGP Ibrahim’s “11-Point Police SARS Reform”
Reviewed by Unknown
on
Thursday, August 16, 2018
Rating:
Reviewed by Unknown
on
Thursday, August 16, 2018
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