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| National Coordinator of the Network of Police Reform In Nigeria (NOPRIN), Okechukwu Nwanguma |
Speaking in a recent interview, Okechukwu examines the many challenges bedeviling effective policing in Nigeria.
According to him, police abuse and corruption often come from the top, making it difficult for any kind of change at the lower levels. He added that the colonial origin and history of the Nigerian police force and years of military rule helped to shape a corrupt, brutal and ineffective force.
On the call for state police, Nwanguma said it was inevitable.
How did your organisation come about and what is its true mission?
Network on Police Reform in Nigeria (NOPRIN), now NOPRIN Foundation, is a network of 46 civil society organisations spread across Nigeria and committed to promoting police accountability and respect for human rights. It was established in 2000 to provide opportunity for civil society input to police reform processes and the enhancement of safety, security and justice.
There was widespread clamour for police reform with the eventual restoration of democratic processes in Nigeria after 16 uninterrupted years of military rule. During that dark era, the police suffered utter neglect and were used as tools of brutal repression and gross abuse of human rights. Police reform was initially driven by foreign development partners and government without input from civil society. NOPRIN was therefore, established to provide opportunity for civil society input to police reform in Nigeria.
What are the challenges you have faced in the course of your confrontations with the police? Are you not sometimes scared that you could be blackmailed?
Police abuse and corruption are often ordered from the top or condoned by higher authorities. This makes it difficult to achieve change at the lower levels.
Naturally, police resist change and anybody pushing for change is perceived as an adversary and often exposed to risk or targeted for retaliation. I have been threatened and harassed, but this has not and will not deter me. If those whose duty it is to speak up are intimidated, chicken out and fail to speak up against impunity and advocate for change, the society, especially the poor, weak and vulnerable will be endangered.
The police is not the only security or law enforcement agency. So why concentrate on them alone? Any plan to expand your scope in the future?
We also expose and denounce abuses by other security agencies, the SSS, the army, Navy, Air force as well as by other state agencies and vigilante groups performing law enforcement functions. During NOPRIN’s Public hearings on police abuse across Nigeria, victims of abuse by other security agencies also testified.
But the emphasis has to naturally be on the police because the police is the agency of state that daily interfaces with the citizens, that citizens encounter on a day-to-day basis. The police is the primary law enforcement agency constitutionally charged with maintaining internal security and public order and which ought to act as the guardian of democracy. The police are the public face of government in any democratic society. The extent to which any government is democratic can be gauged by how respectful the police are of human rights and the rule of law.
You are currently pursuing the case of a missing suspect in SARS, Lagos. How far have you gone on it?
The operations of SARS across Nigeria are embarrassing. They breach all legally established procedures for arrest and detention. And this is our main issue with SARS. Society will be endangered if we allow the police to appropriate and exercise the discretion to indefinitely detain, disappear or kill anyone they accuse of armed robbery, kidnapping or other heinous crimes. Anyone accused of a crime is entitled under the law to be presumed innocent until proved otherwise after a fair trial by an independent tribunal or court. But typical of SARS, ikeja, it has continued to detain suspects indefinitely and incommunicado.
In the case of Afam Nriezedi who was arrested in january and detained by SARS, our contention is not whether or not he is guilty of the allegations that SARS has levelled against him. We have asked SARS to disclose to us and his family his whereabouts. He should be charged to Court and not secretly and indefinitely detained. We are awaiting the outcome of investigation ordered by the IGP, Solomon Arase. What we expect is that the detainee should be produced alive and given a chance to appear in Court where his guilt or innocence will be determined. SARS should desist from assuming the role of accuser, prosecutor, judge and the executioner all at once.
You are part of those who praised President Goodluck Jonathan for the recent appointment of Solomon Arase as Inspector-General of Police. Why sir?
Solomon Arase is a thoroughbred police officers and a stickler for police discipline and professionalism. Arase means well and is intellectually and professionally equipped to lead the NPF. But there are structural and institutional issues that must be addressed before any IGP, even if he or she comes from heaven, can perform to his optimum. Barring political interference and some other internal dynamics within the system, Arase will reposition the police.
There is the belief he could be the shortest serving IG in Nigeria as he could be replaced by the incoming President. What do you think?
On a personal note, I’ll encourage Buhari to give Solo, as we fondly call him, a chance to put his intellect and professional experience to work in the service of the NPF. Buhari should not play politics with security. Professionalism and competences are the key considerations.
What is your opinion about the IG’s order stopping checkpoints and road blocks?
Police checkpoints are nothing more than avenues for police harassment, extortion and extrajudicial killings. There has been reductions in extrajudicial killings at checkpoints since MD Abubakar banned police checkpoints. There should be more of patrols than mounting road blocks. The IG should pay more attention to the Southeast where police checkpoints have persisted in spite of the ban. The police in the southeast zone have converted the zone into an occupied territory of conquered people.
The police has a soiled image in Nigeria. You are at the forefront of the clamour for reforms in the police. How do you think this is possible?
Poor resourcing of the police is responsible for police corruption, abuse and ineffectiveness. Police resort to illicit means to raise funds for their routine operations. They rely on complainants and accused people for money to buy as simple a thing as stationery to record statements. Police rely on complainants to ‘mobilise’ them to investigate cases. And cases are usually resolved in favour of the highest bidder. Police have vehicles that they have to maintain and fuel but no funds. Often, when accused persons are unable to pay the bribe demanded by the police, they suffer abuse. Police abuse leads to public resentment. Lack of accountability for abuse leads to impunity. There is need to adequately fund, train, equip and motivate the police to perform effectively and to respect the human rights of the citizens.
Government should dust up the reports of various reform committees and panel and implement genuine reforms which will address most of these symptoms.
According to him, police abuse and corruption often come from the top, making it difficult for any kind of change at the lower levels. He added that the colonial origin and history of the Nigerian police force and years of military rule helped to shape a corrupt, brutal and ineffective force.
On the call for state police, Nwanguma said it was inevitable.
How did your organisation come about and what is its true mission?
Network on Police Reform in Nigeria (NOPRIN), now NOPRIN Foundation, is a network of 46 civil society organisations spread across Nigeria and committed to promoting police accountability and respect for human rights. It was established in 2000 to provide opportunity for civil society input to police reform processes and the enhancement of safety, security and justice.
There was widespread clamour for police reform with the eventual restoration of democratic processes in Nigeria after 16 uninterrupted years of military rule. During that dark era, the police suffered utter neglect and were used as tools of brutal repression and gross abuse of human rights. Police reform was initially driven by foreign development partners and government without input from civil society. NOPRIN was therefore, established to provide opportunity for civil society input to police reform in Nigeria.
What are the challenges you have faced in the course of your confrontations with the police? Are you not sometimes scared that you could be blackmailed?
Police abuse and corruption are often ordered from the top or condoned by higher authorities. This makes it difficult to achieve change at the lower levels.
Naturally, police resist change and anybody pushing for change is perceived as an adversary and often exposed to risk or targeted for retaliation. I have been threatened and harassed, but this has not and will not deter me. If those whose duty it is to speak up are intimidated, chicken out and fail to speak up against impunity and advocate for change, the society, especially the poor, weak and vulnerable will be endangered.
The police is not the only security or law enforcement agency. So why concentrate on them alone? Any plan to expand your scope in the future?
We also expose and denounce abuses by other security agencies, the SSS, the army, Navy, Air force as well as by other state agencies and vigilante groups performing law enforcement functions. During NOPRIN’s Public hearings on police abuse across Nigeria, victims of abuse by other security agencies also testified.
But the emphasis has to naturally be on the police because the police is the agency of state that daily interfaces with the citizens, that citizens encounter on a day-to-day basis. The police is the primary law enforcement agency constitutionally charged with maintaining internal security and public order and which ought to act as the guardian of democracy. The police are the public face of government in any democratic society. The extent to which any government is democratic can be gauged by how respectful the police are of human rights and the rule of law.
You are currently pursuing the case of a missing suspect in SARS, Lagos. How far have you gone on it?
The operations of SARS across Nigeria are embarrassing. They breach all legally established procedures for arrest and detention. And this is our main issue with SARS. Society will be endangered if we allow the police to appropriate and exercise the discretion to indefinitely detain, disappear or kill anyone they accuse of armed robbery, kidnapping or other heinous crimes. Anyone accused of a crime is entitled under the law to be presumed innocent until proved otherwise after a fair trial by an independent tribunal or court. But typical of SARS, ikeja, it has continued to detain suspects indefinitely and incommunicado.
In the case of Afam Nriezedi who was arrested in january and detained by SARS, our contention is not whether or not he is guilty of the allegations that SARS has levelled against him. We have asked SARS to disclose to us and his family his whereabouts. He should be charged to Court and not secretly and indefinitely detained. We are awaiting the outcome of investigation ordered by the IGP, Solomon Arase. What we expect is that the detainee should be produced alive and given a chance to appear in Court where his guilt or innocence will be determined. SARS should desist from assuming the role of accuser, prosecutor, judge and the executioner all at once.
You are part of those who praised President Goodluck Jonathan for the recent appointment of Solomon Arase as Inspector-General of Police. Why sir?
Solomon Arase is a thoroughbred police officers and a stickler for police discipline and professionalism. Arase means well and is intellectually and professionally equipped to lead the NPF. But there are structural and institutional issues that must be addressed before any IGP, even if he or she comes from heaven, can perform to his optimum. Barring political interference and some other internal dynamics within the system, Arase will reposition the police.
There is the belief he could be the shortest serving IG in Nigeria as he could be replaced by the incoming President. What do you think?
On a personal note, I’ll encourage Buhari to give Solo, as we fondly call him, a chance to put his intellect and professional experience to work in the service of the NPF. Buhari should not play politics with security. Professionalism and competences are the key considerations.
What is your opinion about the IG’s order stopping checkpoints and road blocks?
Police checkpoints are nothing more than avenues for police harassment, extortion and extrajudicial killings. There has been reductions in extrajudicial killings at checkpoints since MD Abubakar banned police checkpoints. There should be more of patrols than mounting road blocks. The IG should pay more attention to the Southeast where police checkpoints have persisted in spite of the ban. The police in the southeast zone have converted the zone into an occupied territory of conquered people.
The police has a soiled image in Nigeria. You are at the forefront of the clamour for reforms in the police. How do you think this is possible?
Poor resourcing of the police is responsible for police corruption, abuse and ineffectiveness. Police resort to illicit means to raise funds for their routine operations. They rely on complainants and accused people for money to buy as simple a thing as stationery to record statements. Police rely on complainants to ‘mobilise’ them to investigate cases. And cases are usually resolved in favour of the highest bidder. Police have vehicles that they have to maintain and fuel but no funds. Often, when accused persons are unable to pay the bribe demanded by the police, they suffer abuse. Police abuse leads to public resentment. Lack of accountability for abuse leads to impunity. There is need to adequately fund, train, equip and motivate the police to perform effectively and to respect the human rights of the citizens.
Government should dust up the reports of various reform committees and panel and implement genuine reforms which will address most of these symptoms.
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