POLICE BRUTALITY, ASSAULT AND BATTERY
Police officers are meant to secure
lives and properties but on the contrary, countless ordinary Nigerians
attempting to make precarious ends meet as taxi drivers, market traders and
shopkeepers are accosted on a daily basis by armed police officers who demand
bribes and commit human rights abuses against them as a means of extorting
money.
Those who fail to pay are frequently
threatened with arrest and physical harm. Far too often these threats are
carried out. Victims of crime are mandated to pay the police from the moment
they enter a police station to file a complaint until the day their case is
brought before a court. Behind the camera, top officials embezzle and loot
staggering sums of public funds meant to cover basic police operations. Senior
police officers also enforce a perverse system of returns in which rank and
file officers are compelled to pay up the chain of command a share of the money
they extort from the public.
Police brutality is the unwarranted
or excessive and often illegal and intentional use of force against civilians. Forms
of police brutality have ranged from assault and battery to mayhem, torture,
murder, harassment, false arrest, intimidation, homicides, psychological
intimidation and other forms of mistreatment. This police brutality to
vulnerable groups such as the poor, weak, women, elderly etc is always
propelled by race, ethnicity or inherent wickedness.
SARS, the acronym for Special
Anti-Robbery Squad was established in 1992 to tackle robbery, kidnappings and
other violent crime, but has widely been criticized for human rights abuses
including torture, extortion and extrajudicial killings. On the 8th of October,
2020 citizens of one of the largest black countries in the world rose up and
demanded an end to the Special Anti-Robbery Squad on the incessant and continuous
report of their violence against Nigerians. In Nigeria, civilians have been
extorted, raped, tortured and killed by police officers from SARS. Cases of
such are, in April last year, Kofi Bartels a 34 years old radio journalist was
beaten and arrested "they took turns to slap, punch and kick me while I
was struggling with a swollen knee. At least six officers, one at a time"
he said, Philomena Celestine 25 has also seen SARS brutality up close.
In 2018, she was traveling home from
her University graduation ceremony with her family in Edo State, when their car
was pulled over by SARS officers, her two brothers taken out and harassed.
These accounts are just two of many that sparked protests against the unit
across Nigeria. The killing on October 20th, 2020 of 78 peaceful defenseless
protesters in Lekki, a wealthy part of Lagos, Nigeria's commercial hub, was not
the first time that the country's security forces had fired on a crowd of
peaceful demonstrators.
The protests started in early
October after the killing of a young man allegedly by members of the Special
Anti-Robbery Squad, a police unit with a renowned reputation for brutality.
Amnesty International documented at least 82 known cases of torture,
extrajudicial killings, extortion and rape by SARS between January 2017 and May
2020. According to their report, victims held in SARS custody have been
subjected to mock execution, beating, punching, kicking, burning with
cigarettes, waterboarding, near-asphyxiation with plastic bags, forcing detainees
to assume stressful bodily positions and sexual violence. In 2016, the World
Internal Security and Police Index rated Nigeria's police force as the worst in
the world.
Instead of listening to the demands
of the citizens and tackling the current issue at hand with the best form of
approach (dialogue), the government disbanded the SARS unit and on the same day
set up another unit called the Special Weapons And Tactics (SWAT). How was this
unit formed? Aren't the SWAT officers still the same disbanded SARS officers?
When were the SWAT officers psychologically, emotionally, physically and
socially reformed? Are their leaders not still the same disbanded SARS leaders?
What are the regulations set up to checkmate them?
Nigerians are tired and demand a
total scrapping of SARS and SWAT "we cannot continue like this, we are the
future leaders of tomorrow, yet you're killing us" Bisola a Human Rights
Activist cried out. Remember, the power of the people is greater than the
people in power.
Onyinyechi Iheanyi
About the Writer
Onyinyechi Iheanyi is a writer, novelist, essayist,
playwright, an activist and a dramatist. She is currently a member of the
Association Of Nigerian Authors (ANA Rivers) State Chapter and the Society Of
Young Nigerian Writers (SYNW), Bayelsa State Chapter.
