By Innocent Anaba

The issue of extra judicial executions by the Nigerian police has, for quite some time, been on the front burner of national discourse and despite denials by the Police High Command, the ugly trend has continued unabated with many public health institutions raising alarm over alleged harassment, intimidation, and highhandedness of police officers in their bid to off load the victims of their mass executions.

(Left) Prof. Bem Angwe, Execute Director, NHRC and Professor of Morbid Anatomy, who is in charge of the hospital’s morgue, Prof. Martins Nzegwu, conducting Prof Angwe and members of the commission round the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital, UNTH Morgue.

The Nigeria Police Force has a history of extrajudicial killing, which is a sort of leftover from the military era in the country. In 2008, Amnesty International released a report titled, “Nigeria Police kill at will” which documented cases of torture and shooting of suspects in custody.

The organisation said the Nigeria Police was responsible for hundreds of unlawful killings every year, stressing  that the Police do not only kill people by shooting them but torture them to death, often while they are in detention.

“The majority of the cases go uninvestigated and the police officers responsible go unpunished. The families of the victims usually get no justice or redress. Most never even found out what happened to their loved ones,” the report stated. “Extrajudicial killing in the police remains a shocking common occurrence”, Human Rights Watch researcher for Nigeria, Eric Guttschuss, was quoted in a BBC report in May 2009.

This assessment came four years after the June 7 and 8, 2005 cold-blooded murder of five male traders and a female student (Apo six) by the police in Abuja.

Prime suspect in the Apo six murder, Ibrahim Danjuma DCP, who was angered by the effrontery of Augusta Arebu (the female in Apo six) in refusing his love advances, waylaid the six at a police checkpoint on their way back from a night party and tagged them armed robbers, ordering policemen at the check point to shoot them. This happened shortly before arrival of the UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial executions in Nigeria.

Eight years after this most infamous case of extrajudicial killing in Nigeria’s history, the criminal trial of the identified killer-police officers has gone nowhere. Families of the victims appear to have given up hope for justice, especially after the prime suspect was granted bail in 2006 by the trial judge, Justice Isyaku Bello on dubious health grounds. Mr. Othman Abdulsalam, the then DPO of Garki police station, where they were killed, also escaped from police custody and has remained at large till date.

The report of the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial executions said: “If the Apo 6 were an isolated incident, it would be a tragedy and a case of a few bad apples within the police force. Unfortunately, many of the ingredients, the false labelling of people as armed robbers, the shooting, the fraudulent placement of weapons, the attempted extortion of the victims’ families, the contempt for post mortem procedures, the falsified death certificates, and the flight of an accused senior police officer, are all too familiar occurrences.”

In February 2013, NOPRIN expressed serious concern over the never-ending incidents of extrajudicial killings by law enforcement and security agents in Nigeria. NOPRIN condemned, in particular, the February 25, 2013 gruesome murder of two students and grievous injury on four students of Nassarawa State University allegedly by Nigerian soldiers and police.

Owing to the buck passing between the police and the soldiers over who carried out the killing, NOPRIN called for a Judicial Panel of Inquiry to unravel those responsible so that they could be brought to account and the families of the victims adequately compensated. On May 27, 2013 the Divisional Police Officer (DPO) of Ogida Police Station in Edo State, Mrs. Carol Afegbai, and members of her patrol team allegedly shot a final year student of the University of Benin, Ibrahim Momodu.

Although the police in Edo command claim that late Momodu was killed while attempting to fire at them. However, a preliminary report from the pathologists who examined the remains of the deceased showed that he was shot from the back with three bullets which tore his heart before exiting through the upper part of his chest.

The DPO and other suspected accomplices should have faced orderly room trial, dismissed and arraigned in court for murder. Meanwhile, the Edo State Police Commissioner, Mr. Folunsho Adebanjo,  reported to have redeployed the DPO and her orderly, according to him, ‘to have a smooth investigation’.

Family members of the victim are suspicious of the motive of the police and are insisting, through their lawyers, that “the proper procedure for murder case is for the police after investigation to charge the suspects to court and thereafter, the court would order the duplication of the file to be sent to the office of DPP and not the other way round.”

In a petition to NHRC, the Principal Medical Officer in Charge of the General Hospital Gboko, Benue Yio Josephine, accused the police of dumping victims of its judicial executions at the hospital’s morgue. According to the petition dated June 1, 2015 Josephine alleged that, “following the recent killings in Benue State and in Gboko Local Government Area, police officers from zone A Division came and dumped 17 identified corpses in the hospital. They also threatened the medical officer on duty.

“The Hospital management told them (Police) that the hospital only work with identified corpses and refused to receive the said corpses but they dumped them in front of the mortuary block and left. We wish to state that the hospital is not a cementary neither has it taken up the place of the social welfare department of the local government, the police should imbibe  due process in carrying out their duties,” Josephine said.

Another petition was also lodged at the Commission by the Civil Liberties Organization (CLO) in Enugu State which galvanized the Executive Secretary of NHRC, Prof. Bem Angwe, into action as he led a high powered delegation made up of Directors in the Commission to the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital UNTH, Ituku Ozala, in the state, to see things for himself.

Angwe pointed out that the Commission has been receiving numerous petitions from hospitals across the country on the indiscriminate dumping of corpses by the police, in various hospital morgues. He said: “there are some Nigerians who have died and have remained unclaimed and are still in hospital morgues , so we are here to unravel the circumstances of their deaths and why they have remained unclaimed in hospital morgues. We hope to recommend that government plays some roles in the disposal of these bodies.

Government must begin to respond to the challenges being faced by the citizens either by not being able to pay for the hospital bills and being abandoned to die, and when dead, are still left in the morgues. He noted that there is urgent need for a compulsory health insurance scheme in order to provide succour for Nigerians who cannot afford medical expenses.

“Even if these are armed robbers, there must be an inquest to show why such persons must be killed, as they are presumed innocent until convicted by a competent court. We had complaints that the police just come to hospitals, harass the staff and  dump the bodies. The Chief Medical Director of UNTH, Dr. Christopher Amah, while receiving the delegation, said “it is gratifying to note that the issue has drawn the attention of the Commission, the era where people are just killed indiscriminatingly  is over.”

A Professor of Morbid Anatomy who is in charge of the hospital’s morgue, Prof. Martins Nzegwu, stated that the hospital had in its morgue a total of 97 shot robbers who were brought to the hospital, by the police, over a period of two years.

“We have no fifty bodies from the police, we are over congested. Before we do the mass burial, the SSS comes to supervise. The bodies we have in our morgue are not less than two years old. There is the need for the police to keep proper record of the persons shot by the police because, at times, they shoot innocent people and tag them as armed robbers. There is the need to have checks and balances in the police, Commission and hospitals.

“At times, we have had to go to court to get injunctions from courts to give them decent burials . We have 97 corpses which we have slated for mass burial as we have to decongest. We have had to embalm the bodies with the hospital bearing the cost of N25,000 per body.

“We also have about 90 babies who were abandoned by their parents because there is a practice of not taking dead bodies home. For those bodies to be identified, there is the need to do DNA typing which costs an average of $2,5000, so this has brought to the fore the need for an accurate data base in this country . There should be a central data system where the forensics of every Nigerian is stored,” Nzegwu added.

Speaking when he visited the State’s Commissioner of Police, Mohammed Adamu, in his office, Angwe stated that “we are over on an inquiry. The principal aim is to unravel the facts behind the alleged dumping of corpses at the UNTH Enugu to enable government put in policies that would stem the tide. The Commission has received reports of the indiscriminate dumping of corpses of person who have had interaction with the police, people who were either extra-judicially executed.

“We have also received reports from hospital management boards across the country of harassment by the police and indiscriminate dumping of corpses in hospitals,  some of these happenings the police high command may not be aware. We received the report from a group of lawyers on the dumping of over 50 bodies at the UNTH and I led an investigative team which showed that there are over 97 bodies have been deposited there over time, arising from encounters with the police, sometimes with armed robbers and kidnappers.

There are also over 70 bodies of babies who have been abandoned by their parents as the parents refused to take them home and give them decent burials. It is an issue that the Commission is taking seriously and would sensitize Nigerians. Some of the bodies, according to the hospital register, are not properly identified by the police.

He further noted that, “We are not saying that these people may not be armed robbers but it is necessary to know if the police keep an appropriate record of the people and even that of police officers who die in the course of duty. There is also the need to make it mandatory for these issues to be recorded to prevent the rampant cases of impunity and extra judicial killings as a result of some police officers not applying good judgment and have recklessly carried out killing of innocent citizens because where you have a proper data, you can easily go to the data and trace the persons.

The finger prints would also make it possible for identifying such persons who are killed and abandoned. I know that the police does not have a deliberate policy of extra judicial killings, so the inquiry will also help the police in keeping tabs on the activities of its officers. We would be requesting that the office here furnish us with a list of the bodies dumped and the officers who dumped these corpses for the police to investigate the incidents.

It’s so bad that the UNTH had to go to court to get an order to conduct a mass burial and even went on to advertise the mass burial for the bodies.” The Commissioner of Police Enugu State, Mohammed Adamu, while responding, said “We appreciate your visit which has shown us that you want to be fair. You are all aware of the roles of the police to protect lives and property and every police man is committed to that and no right thinking police man can go about committing crimes.

Like I tell my officers, if you protect a life you are doing the work of God. Under my watch, I would never support anybody to take the laws into his hands. Any case of human rights abuses that comes to my attention is investigated. We saw in the newspapers the issue that you raised, the matter was investigated by the state CID and was also investigated by Abuja, concerning procedure in the police. Whenever there is an issue of dead bodies, the first people that are called is the police.

When you get to a mortuary, there are records and procedures; all these deaths are incidented, so as you are going you will be able to go with records- officers go but records remain. “This command, under my watch, will give you all the necessary support. We even investigate accidental deaths. We should use a criminal data base at the national level to keep track of criminals, I hope the Nigerian Police will get to that stage and every leadership of the police is conscious of that.

We will avail you of our team and be rest assured that we will not cover anything, even if some of the officers have left on transfer, we would invite them. In Benue State, Angwe and his team met with the Governor, Samuel Ortom and the Chief Judge of the state, Justice Iorhemen Hwande. Governor Ortom pledged to work with the Commission to ensure that the rule of law is followed by security agencies and to end extra judicial executions by the police.

His words: “We will not tolerate extra judicial killings by the police or any other security agency as we are in democracy and every accused person must be taken to court for trial. I commend the National Human Rights Commission for the wonderful work it has been doing. We will not encourage extra judicial execution under any guise and we are willing to work with the Commission to see that the rights of citizens are protected.

Justice Hwande, while receiving the delegation, acceded to the request of the Commission for the setting up of a coroner’s inquest into the cause of death of the identified corpses allegedly dumped by the police at the Gboko General Hospital over time.

It would be recalled that the Commission had requested the Chief Judge of Enugu State to convene a coroner’s inquest into the cause of death of one Chukwuma Ihezie who was allegedly extra-judicially killed by personnel of the state’s Special Anti-robbery Squad and 50 other corpses allegedly deposited by the police at the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital (UNTH) Enugu.

The Commission had in 2014 received a complaint from the Enugu office of CLO alleging that the late Iheizie, a 30 year old male, was extra-judicially killed by one Mr. Bolu of the Special Anti-robbery Squad of Enugu State Police Command. In line with the Commission’s Standing Order and Rules of Procedure, the Commission undertook a preliminary investigation into the complaint and discovered additional human remains of about fifty men, with red marker on them, at the same mortuary where Ihezie’s body was deposited.

According to a statement by the Chief Press Officer in the Commission, Fatimah Agwai Mohammed, in the exercise of its statutory mandate, Prof. Angwe has requested for the coroner’s inquest into the alleged killings to enable the Commission determine whether or not a systemic case of extra-judicial execution has occurred in the circumstance.

Prof Angwe stated that extra-judicial execution is a violation of right to life  contrary to Section 33 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999, (as amended); Article 4, of the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights (ACHPR) and Article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).

He further assured members of the public that the Commission will remain focused in its fight against impunity and will ensure that law enforcement agencies adhere to principle of accountability and best practices in the discharge of their duties.

Failure to bring perpetrators of abuse to account sustains the climate of impunity that encourages others to commit abuse. There is the need to streamline the various internal disciplinary procedures in the Nigerian Police Force into a manageable framework that could easily be used by aggrieved citizens seeking redress for police misconduct, as well as using data emanating from such mechanisms in tracking police officials who are subjects of unusually high numbers of citizens’ complaints.

There is also the need to strengthen external oversight of the police. One of the principal external police oversight mechanisms is the Police Service Commission (PSC). The PSC, evinced under the Constitution and the PSC Act of 2001, is an independent and impartial institution. A body which is established with the constitutional mandate to recruit, promote and discipline all police personnel other than the IGP in an independent and impartial manner, is expected to be composed and headed by non partisan individuals of unquestionable integrity.

What the nation need is a civilian-led PSC that has the courage to investigate all public complaints and cases of police abuse. Appointing a retired Inspector-General undermines and subverts this mission and renders the PSC ultimately into another department of the NPF. This is not good for the Police; it is inconsistent with the structure and purpose of the Constitution and the PSC Act of 2001; and defeats the whole essence of the establishment of the PSC as a civilian oversight body on policing in Nigeria.