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« London blasts cause chaos on Tube | Main | Soyinka urges Zimbabwe sanctions »

July 22, 2005

Many Nigerians still wary of police

Nigeria's police have a history of violence
A judicial panel set up by the Nigerian government is investigating the killing in Abuja by police of six traders from the nearby village of Apo.

By Yusuf Sarki Muhammad
BBC News, Abuja

One of the accused, deputy police commissioner Danjuma Ibrahim, said that police plotted to ensure a suspect escaped so that he could be "indicted and killed".

As the panel hears testimony from suspects and families of the dead, the newly appointed inspector-general of police, Sunday Ehindero, has been assessing his first six months in office.

He says that in that time, the police have arrested 600 armed robbery suspects and killed another 114 suspects who engaged them in battle. The police have also recovered more than 400 firearms.

However, few people outside the service believe this is a commendable accomplishment.

Even the police's new slogan, "to serve and protect with integrity", has failed to win over the public.

'Disgrace'

Ojobo Atuluku, a human rights campaigner, said the police are the same as they ever were.

"The police don't seem to have changed anything else about their nature, their practices or their processes," she said.

"They seem to be doing good by their own indicators. There's a lot of human rights abuses, there's a lot of extortion still going on.

"The Apo tragedy is still very, very recent in our minds... for them to be celebrating, I think it is a national disgrace."

Although the Apo incident has been well publicised, there are many other cases that have not received similar attention, as Clement Wasa from Community Action for Popular Participation, an Abuja-based NGO, pointed out.

He gave as an example the case of Issa Adams, who he said was a victim of police brutality just a few days before the Apo killings.

"Issa Adams and his brother and a cousin were arrested along the airport road on the pretext that they were armed robbery suspects, and kept in police custody for over three days," he said.

"At the time they were arrested, their houses were seized and they were kept incommunicado for three days."

No action?

But police spokesperson Emma Ighodalo said there is now transparency in the service.

"When the Apo killings happened, the Abuja police set up an internal panel to investigate the matter and they came up with their findings. Their findings indicted some police officers," he said.

"I think it is of much credit to the force. There was no cover-up at all."

Pressed on the question of better training for police officers, Mr Ighodalo said measures were being put in place.

"The 143,000 constables who undergo courses are going to be trained in weapons handling, because we want to minimise incidences of misuse of firearms, and we want to minimise incidences of extrajudicial killings," he said.

But people in Abuja are not optimistic.

"Things are going to back to the way they were, if not worse, what with the Apo killings," one man said.

"The news we get around from other states, it's pretty much been the same story everywhere. So nothing has improved."

"Nigerian police need a total re-orientation," said another.

"[Their new motto is] 'to serve with integrity', but I haven't seen it in action," a third man said.

Mr Ehindero may be trying to improve things, it seems there is still a long way to go.


Posted by Publisher at July 22, 2005 08:30 AM

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