The rights of the people should be upheld at all times
As we join the rest of the world to mark the 2024 International Human Rights Day with the theme, "Our Rights, Our Future, Right Now", the defining paradox of Nigeria's unenviable human rights record is that the greatest violations are committed by agencies that are supposed to enforce and uphold the law. The arrest by the Ekiti State Police Command of a legal practitioner and activist, Dele Farotimi and detention is a case in point. Last Tuesday, Farotimi was arraigned on charges of defaming nonagenarian lawyer and founder of Afe Babalola University Ado Ekiti, in a book, 'Nigeria and its Criminal Justice System'. Whatever may be the merit of Babalola's grievances, the role of the police in this saga raises serious questions about human rights and the rule of law in Nigeria.
On a day such as this, therefore, it is important for the authorities to uphold the rights of Nigerians regardless of status. The Human Rights Watch (HRW) World Report 2024, for instance, highlights how in Nigeria "security forces continue to be implicated in gross human rights abuses, including indiscriminate airstrikes, while the authorities have repeatedly failed to hold officers responsible for the abuses accountable through the justice system." According to HRW, personnel of our security forces are culpable in sundry cases that violate the rights of citizens including arbitrary arrests, prolonged detention without trial, torture, extrajudicial killings, and sexual violence against women and girls.
The root of this problem is an embarrassing ignorance on the part of security operatives on the basic rights of citizens in a democratic society. Correspondingly, we are often dealing with officers of the law who do not understand their obligation as the protection of fellow citizens and their basic rights. Aside from all these, elected governments that routinely adopt unpopular policies cannot be trusted to protect people from abuse by agents of state. Therefore, to say that the criminal justice administration in Nigeria needs reform is to state the obvious. But the greater challenge is with the security agencies whose personnel have scant regards for the rights of citizens.
On the basis of unproven allegations, sometimes without any allegation at all, personnel of our law enforcement agencies would subject innocent citizens to all manner of molestations. The police are particularly notorious for arresting and dumping people into detention centres after which money is extorted from their relations to secure release. People are arrested and paraded at crowded press conferences addressed by the police. After the "media trial", many of them are dumped in detention centres to rot away. This is largely why our prisons are filled with awaiting-trial inmates.
More disturbing is that those who preside over our judiciary in the states and at the federal level are shirking their responsibility. While section 34(4) of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act (ACJA), 2015 makes it mandatory that a monthly inspection be conducted in the detention centres of the Directorate of State Security (DSS), Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), police and other civil institutions, the fact that this is hardly ever done has emboldened operatives of these agencies to act above the law by abducting and detaining innocent citizens who are then rendered incommunicado.
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Given the foregoing, there is an urgent need to reform not only the administration of justice in Nigeria but also the operational strategy of these security agencies if they must regain public confidence. Emphasis needs to shift from law enforcement to crime prevention with reforms targeted at improving on their human rights records. In the immediate, there should be an investigation of all the detention centres in Nigeria to ensure that innocent citizens languishing in them regain their freedom.
