The police is an agency of the executive arm of government that maintains law and order in any society. Unlike the military, the police investigate and prosecute cases in the law courts. It plays a vital role in ensuring peaceful coexistence among the citizens without which the society would be a jungle. In Nigeria, the police, though a necessary evil, has lost the confidence of several Nigerians because of poor attitude to work, unethical conduct and ominous disregard for fundamental human rights.
The Nigeria Police these past few years have been on a straight downward spiral. From gross negligence of duty to haphazard methods of carrying out security duties with their long history of engaging in unprofessional, corrupt, and criminal conduct. This has led to a high influx of crime in the country.
It is quite regrettable that police personnel had for long dropped their core duties for the unusual. Corruption is synonymous with them. Civilians beget undue intimidation, harassment, extortion, injustice and jungle justice, molestation, wanton killing and all sorts of plagues from the police. The police have become irresponsible, extremely corrupt and a nuisance. They treat the poor differently from the rich. What is quite most shocking is the fact that all bids to sanitise the Nigerian Police have been futile. This makes one wonder whether the personnel have become above the law, or whether there are no practical measures to address the scourging issues from the police to civilians as well as the society as a whole.
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In civilised societies such as the US, UK, it is a thing of pride to have a family member in the police, but the reverse is the case in Nigeria where stubborn children in the family who probably had dropped out of school are encouraged to apply for enlistment into the police. Many parents have done this to get rid of miscreants from the family. Nothing good would come from a police force made up of poorly educated rascals known in Nigerian parlance as ‘area boys’. Such policemen are ready tools in the hands of blood-thirsty and renegade politicians who would pay any amount of money to ensure that terror is unleashed on perceived formidable opponents and intimidation of their supporters.
A recent rape and murder case involving a young lady, Charity Ngozi Ezeh who was a candidate for the 2019 Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board examination who was raped and brutally killed by suspected herdsmen has as usual been swept under the carpet by the Nigerian police.
The 20-year-old was raped and strangled to death by herdsmen in Imufu community, Enugu-Ezike, Igbo-Eze North Local Government Area of Enugu State on the 27th of March, 2019 on her way for her usual JAMB lessons. Three alleged herdsmen were arrested in connection with Ngozi’s rape and eventual murder by the neighbourhood watch personnel. However, they were released by the police despite having paid the police and hiring a bus with which they were transferred to the police headquarters. One of the suspects even went back to the victim’s mother’s home to lay threats that nothing can ever be done to them. Her burial was also delayed because the police demanded money for Coronavirus Inquest Form which is normally issued free of charge.
It was the new state Commissioner of police who gave an order before they got the inquest form. But the family still contributed about ₦300,000 to pay for an autopsy because left for the police, the body would have kept on being delayed despite the numerous unreplied petitions to the Police.
This is one of the many cases of how the Nigerian police tend to frustrate and sabotage investigations as long as monetary benefits and kickbacks are not involved. Corruption has eaten so deep into the administrative system of the Police, it is now a case of the man with the deepest pocket always wins the case.
Extortion, embezzlement, and other corrupt practices by Nigeria’s police undermine the fundamental human rights of Nigerians in two key ways. First, the most direct effect of police corruption on ordinary citizens stems from the myriad human rights abuses committed by police officers in the process of extorting money. These abuses range from arbitrary arrest and unlawful detention to threats and acts of violence, including physical and sexual assault, torture, and even extrajudicial killings which they are very popular for.
Many Nigerians have at one time or the other been unlawfully detained by the police without any offence. And because of impatience or ignorance, they gave money to the police in the name of bail. This is a serious infringement on their fundamental human rights especially the right to personal liberty. The police are fond of arresting and detaining innocent citizens without any sensible evidence just because of the money they would extort from them under the guise of bail.
The police have on numerous occasions severely beaten, sexually assaulted, or shot to death ordinary citizens who failed to pay the bribes demanded. These criminal acts by the police, coupled with their failure to perform many of their most basic functions, severely undermine the rule of law in Nigeria.
It is hard to believe that the Nigerian Police which is saddled with the constitutional responsibility of protecting lives and property is now unleashing terror on innocent Nigerians from whose tax it is maintained. It is bizarre that a police officer could raise a weapon because of a ₦100 bribe. This can only happen in banana republics.
Many Nigerians have lost confidence in the Police due to the unprintable acts of some of its operatives. The fundamental human rights of Nigerians have been crudely and horrendously negated by the police. For your complaint to be written down, you have to pay money.
For policemen to effect an arrest, the complainant must be ready to fuel the police vehicle. To release somebody on bail for a misdemeanor or a minor offence, the surety is asked to pay money. All these are extortions. The police as an institution have failed Nigerians. Most of the operatives have no working conscience.
AFRICA DAILY NEWS, NEW YORK
