We do not envisage a country where impunity gets the last word. But when an out-of-the –world incident occurs, we are forced to examine if we are trying hard enough to ensure the rule of law presides over the rule of force. Here is a story of police brutality on a lawyer; yes, you heard me right, a LAWYER in the course of his duty; and this is no fiction.
Bar Richard Olukayode Adedoyin account is this: On Saturday, 5th of September, 2015, he accompanied his client, the complainant, to the Sabon Tasha Police station Kaduna to follow up on the case of his client who was the complainant.
The Investigation Police Officer asked him to give them money to call the accused. The lawyer declined but offered his phone to the IPO to make the call. Furious, the IPO took the phone, smashed it on the ground and said: “Na you go teach me as I go take do investigation? You no know sey where man dey work na ein he dey chop; na ein den take cal am workshop?”. Bar Richard, now watching his phone in smithereens inquired about the rash act. Words were exchanged.
The atmosphere began to heat up. It became quite clear to Bar Richard that wisdom required he left the station.
As he made his way to the door, he felt a tap on his shoulder. Turning around, he received slaps non-stop until he was dazed. He was dragged back into a secluded office where the police assured him that they would make him an example on how not to interfere with their job.
What followed next was a roller coaster of events that can best be watched in Nollywood. The police asked him to write a statement which they dictated to state that he got to the station and unprovoked, began to assault the police. He refused. Bar Richard was then forced to strip off leaving only his boxers, commanded to seat on the floor. Police took turns to take photos of him with their camers; taunting and jeering at the lawyer.
Eventually, he was forced into a cell.
Locked in a small cell with over 21 inmates, he overheard a conversation going on. The police knew they had bitten more than they could chew and so began to orchestrate a cover-up plot. Talks on ‘how we go do?’ began to hatch what will turn Bar Richard’s ordeal into an indescribable disaster.
He was left to stay overnight in a cell where inmates urinate and defecate. He was not allowed to see anyone. No calls. No food, and when he requested for water, it was denied. He got his orientation: When anyone needed to sleep, inmates would do the ‘vespa style’ – crouch on one another to blink their eyelids. True to type, this was what he underwent the whole time he was in custody.
On Sunday, 6th of September, Bar Richard who knew his principal’s number off hand, asked a Good Samaritan to call his boss. The boss, of over 32years of practice, came to the police station. He was denied bail on the grounds that Bar Richard ‘knew what to do’ to secure bail and that there was a directive not to release him to anyone. The principal left after trying in vain to secure his release.
Bar Richard was transferred to the State Headquarters on the evening of the 7th of September. On his arrival, to the office of the Asst Commissioner, he sought to sit in a chair.
It was pulled off him. He was ordered to seat on the bare floor and reminded that he was a suspect. At this point, the police began to mile around him with a story accredited to him as the lawyer who, without provocation, slapped a police officer. Every time he tried to give his own account, he was shouted down and received threat of beating. A senior officer said they should have broken his legs as an example. The officer at the headquarters showed him some pictures on the wall and told him to cooperate, saying that the pictures of those maimed people were those he had dealt with and that if Bar Richard did not cooperate, he will deal with him and ‘label him anything’.
You would think that would be the end of the story; it was in some way the beginning. Bar Richard heard an order saying he should be thrown into “Cell 7, the President’s cell” for the night. Before he knew it, he was sent into what looked like a dungeon where he was rushed with fists and kicks continually; after eternity, the assaults stopped. Inmates took their turns to state their crimes-murder, rape, kidnapping, car theft. ’Wetin you do?’ The president asked?“I’m a lawyer,” he replied. New round of battery. When he maintained his story, telling of people he had secured bail and his work, the inmates began to apologize.
Word got round about town in the morning and lawyers began to troop into the Kaduna State police headquarters. When the police could not withstand the pressure, Bar Richard Olukayode Adedoyin was released. The Nigeria Bar Association, Kaduna Branch on Thursday 15th October, led a peaceful demonstration to the office of the Commissioner of Police for Kaduna State.
The question is: If a lawyer can be so dehumanized in the course of his duty; what is the plight of ordinary Nigerians?
Will this experience serve as a wakeup call for the Nigeria Bar Association to address squarely the issue and incidences of police brutality in the country? Does the Nigerian Police Force have a different account of the incident that led to Bar Richard being brutalized; and if they do, will they state their own side and would there be any justification for this heinous act?
Will Bar Richard Olukayode Adedoyin find justice via the Fundamental Human Rights procedure? And if he does, what kind of compensation will be adequate considering the difficulty in garnisheeing the Police account?
Should we harbor in the Nigeria Police Force persons who become laws to themselves?
And the big question: Will the Nigeria Bar Association, the biggest bar in the world, close its eyes to the stark revelation of illegal detention centres at the police stations?
We shall keep you abreast as the story ensues.
