A recent media report that the Inspector General of Police Kayode Egbetokun has condemned the rising cases of jungle justice across the country, especially on police personnel, brings to the fore the debate on the role of the police in a democracy.
Force spokesperson, Muyiwa Adejobi, in a statement last week in Abuja, said the IGP also ordered the Deputy Inspector-General of Police Force Criminal Investigation Department to investigate the incidents and bring all persons found culpable to face the full wrath of the law.
The statement specifically highlighted the Edo state scenario where a mob attacked a police station and burnt some suspects to death on October 13. The police condemned what it described as the dangerous and abhorrent trend of jungle justice against it and cautioned the general public on the consequences of such on Nigeria’s criminal justice administration, the rule of law and the global reputation of the country.
In the same instance, the police condemned the act of arson which led to the death by burning of some suspects in police custody, and the subsequent setting ablaze of police barracks, patrol vans and the Divisional Police Station in Agenebode, Etsako East local government area of Edo state on Sunday, October 13, 2024.
Adejobi explained that members of the public alleged that the police were trying to pervert justice by taking into custody some suspected kidnappers and armed robbers who have been accused of terrorising the people of the community in Edo state. The main suspect was arrested and almost lynched by the community members before he was rescued by the police.
“His arrest led the police to arrest three additional suspects. The rescue and detention of the suspects didn’t go down well with the community members, who later mobilised in large numbers and attacked the police station, killed the suspects by burning, and scorched down the station and properties therein”, he said.
Citing another scenario in Agege, Lagos state, Adejobi said some mobs attacked a driver for accidentally knocking down a driver on Saturday, October 19, 2024. He explained that a police team trying to prevent the execution of jungle justice was gruesomely attacked, which led to the killing of a police officer, ASP Augustine Osupayi, attached to the Lagos State Command, by a group of violent mob on Saturday, October 19, 2024, in Agege, Lagos state.
“The police team had raced down to the rescue of a driver who was alleged to have accidentally knocked down a motorcycle rider to death. The group of motorcycle riders pounced on the driver, who was eventually rescued by the police. The rescue didn’t go down well with the riders who descended on the police team and unfortunately killed the ASP instantly. These are very few cases out of many incidents recorded across the country”, the police spokesman said.
While it is not out of place for the IGP to seek to protect his officers and men it behooves on him to juxtapose the assault on police officers with the brutality and extra-judicial killings in the country by the police. It is instructive that Nigeria recorded more than 800 incidents of extra-judicial killings across the country between 2020 and 2023.
A report entitled Mass Atrocities Casualties, published by Global Rights, said 848 extra-judicial executions took place in Nigeria between 2020 and June 2023, with 127 cases in the first half of 2023 alone. The international human rights group said Nigerian citizens have been living in fear of brutality from law enforcement agents as a result.
The Executive Director of Global Rights, Abiodun Baiyewu, said, “Since 2018, we have kept tabs on the mass atrocities across Nigeria. It cuts across issues like casualties of terrorist attacks, cult killings, communal clashes, extra-judicial killings. So, what you’re seeing is the extraction of the number of people who have died through extra-judicial killings. And those were the least numbers, numbers we were able to verify.
“We seem to be running roundabout the same figures every year, with the exception of 2020 and 2022. But when you think about 127 people killed in the first half of 2023, and you think about the number of officers who have been sanctioned for these killings, then you know we’re still very way off from the way things need to be dealt with.”
The release of the Global Rights’ report coincided with the three-year remembrance of the victims of police brutality in Nigeria. In October 2020, thousands of people across Nigeria marched in protests, known as the #EndSARS movement, against the activities of the now-disbanded Special Anti-Robbery Squad, a unit accused of police brutality, including torture, killings and extortion. The protests went on for days, until security forces cracked down on demonstrators at the Lekki toll gate in Lagos. Global Rights’ report said 123 people were killed.
Another report by the Justice Network (JN) and the Network on Police Reform in Nigeria (NOPRIN) revealed a shocking level of criminal force such as torture, abuse, and extra-judicial killings by the Nigeria Police Force (NPF). The report noted that people are dying at the hands of police officers. Torture routinely takes the place of proper investigation, and rape seems to be commonplace when the police arrest vulnerable women. It said, overall, the police in Nigeria are more likely to commit crimes than to prevent them.
Blueprint urges the IGP to go beyond the mere investigation of mob actions against the police to unraveling the root causes of the citizens turning against those constitutionally charged to protect their lives and property. As a matter of fact, the Nigeria police need a holistic reorientation of policing in a democracy. The saying that the police is your friend had long lost its meaning, no thanks to the excesses and rascality of some trigger-happy and corrupt personnel of the NPF.