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.
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