NIGERIAN POLICE ‘KILL AT WILL’
Full Report: Dec2009_amnesty_international_report_nigeria_police_killings_torture_of_igbos.pdf
“The Nigerian police are responsible for hundreds of unlawful killings every year,” said Erwin van der Borght, Director of Amnesty International’s Africa Programme.
“Police don’t only kill people by shooting them; they also torture them to death, often while they are in detention.”
“The majority of the cases go un-investigated and the police officers responsible go unpunished. The families of the victims usually get no justice or redress. Most never even find out what happened to their loved ones.”
Police frequently claim that the victims of shootings were ‘armed robbers’ killed in ‘shoot-outs’ with the police or while trying to escape custody. These claims are often highly implausible.
Fifteen-year-old Emmanuel Egbo was killed by a police officer in Enugu in September 2008. According to witnesses, he was playing with other children in front of his uncle’s house when three police officers came up to them. One officer pulled out a gun and shot the boy, claiming he was an armed robber. He was unarmed.
In August 2009, his family discovered his body had disappeared from the mortuary. As of November 2009, the body is still missing.
Amnesty International said that some police officers see the killings of ‘armed robbers’ in detention as acceptable practice.
In June 2009, the organization visited the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) detention centre in Abuja, which is located in a disused abattoir outside the city.
Suspects are held in a vast warehouse previously used for slaughtering cattle. Chains are still hanging from the ceiling. When Amnesty International delegates visited the building, about 15 people were held in cells. Amnesty International delegates counted at least 30 empty bullet cases scattered on the ground.
Unofficially, a policeman told Amnesty International that many “armed robbers” are taken there and shot.
Amnesty International said that one of the main problems is ‘Nigeria Police Force Order 237’ under which police officers are allowed to shoot suspects and detainees who attempt to escape or avoid arrest – whether or not they pose a threat to life.
“Force Order 237 is so impermissibly broad. It simply gives police officers permission to shoot people. It is against international standards, and is being abused by police officers to commit, justify and cover up illegal killings,” said Erwin van der Borght.
“The government must repeal Force Order 237 and publicly announce that the use of lethal force is only allowed when strictly unavoidable to protect life. This simple step could make a big difference to the number of unlawful police killings we are seeing in Nigeria.”
Enforced disappearances in Nigeria are rife. Typically, in the first days or weeks following arrest, families are allowed to visit their relatives in detention. Later on, police tell them their loved ones have been “transferred to Abuja”. Other times, they simply deny any knowledge of their whereabouts.
The Nigerian government says that they do not condone extrajudicial killings. But they are not doing enough to stop them and bring the police perpetrators to justice. Even on the rare occasions when police officers implicated in an unlawful killing are prosecuted, they are often released on bail or escape custody. Some are simply transferred to other states.
“Ending unlawful killings and enforced disappearances by the police will require serious legal reform and commitment and support from the Nigerian police force,” said Erwin van der Borght. “The Nigerian Police Force must introduce a new code of conduct throughout its chain of command – from the very top to the bottom. If not, the cycle of violence will simply continue.”
Nigeria: Killing at will: Extrajudicial executions and other unlawful killings by the police in Nigeria
Hundreds of people are unlawfully killed by the police in Nigeria every year. Some people die because they fail to pay police officers a bribe. Others are killed because the police use excessive force during arrest or are killed by police officers in extrajudicial executions. Once in custody and away from the public eye, some people are tortured to death in police stations; others disappear in custody. The Nigerian government must act immediately to end all unlawful killings, bring perpetrators to justice and ensure that victims’ families receive adequate reparation.
The Little Country That Won’t Give Up
The world’s shortest-lived country was the tiny state of Biafra — or so it seemed. Six months ago, the Eastern Region of Nigeria, the home of 8,500-000 Ibo tribesmen, proclaimed itself a sovereign nation and plunged Nigeria into civil war. No country ever recognized Biafra, and the Nigerian federal navy soon choked its economy with a blockade. By October, federal troops sent to quell the rebellion had captured almost a third of Biafra’s territory, including the capital of Enugu, and sent the secessionist government fleeing into the region’s rain forests. The surprising fact is that Biafra is still operating as a country, and its government, if less visible, is more vocal than ever.
The government, headed by Oxford-educated Lieut. Colonel Odumegwu Ojukwu, 34, has moved its headquarters south to the dreary provincial town of Aba. Ojukwu’s agents in Lisbon have bought millions of dollars worth of arms and ammunition, which reach the rebels at night via the Portuguese island of São Tomé in the Gulf of Guinea. Biafran students recently organized noisy pro-secessionist demonstrations at the United Nations in New York and in downtown London. Biafra’s lone television station continued to end its program day each evening with a rousing chorus of We Shall Overcome.
Invasion Force. Outnumbered 2 to 1 and surrounded on three sides by a federal army that totals about 50,000 men, Biafra nonetheless seems ready to fight for the last inches of its turf. Pushed out of the Midwestern state, which they had seized in a daring raid, Ojukwu’s men have hurled back boatloads of troops trying to cross the Niger River after them. One big government ferry got stuck on a sandbar in midpassage; while searchlights lit it up, Biafran guns splintered it, and hundreds of men drowned. Elsewhere, the war has become a kind of ballet, with bands of roving soldiers often straying back and forth across each other’s lines for inconclusive skirmishes.
If any battle is to be decisive in the war, it will probably be fought at Port Harcourt. Situated 25 miles up a channel from Bonny Island, which is occupied by swarms of federal troops. Port Harcourt has the only major airport left to Ojukwu, who depends upon air shipments for arms and other vital supplies. Its loss would leave Ojukwu’s men tightly sealed in their Ibo heartland. To prevent a federal force from coming up the channel, the Biafrans have sunk a barge, cars, trucks and even a bus in it. But last week the federal army was preparing to navigate a vast network of secondary channels and creeks to reach Port Harcourt.
“Ibo Hunts.” The Biafrans are adamantly against surrender because they fear that they will be massacred. The killing of many thousands of Ibo in Northern Nigeria last year led to the civil war, and the Northern-dominated army has given Biafrans little cause to believe that they can escape the same fate. Major General Yakubu Gowon, the head of the federal government, has tried to keep his men in line, but without much success. Ragtag recruits who “mop up” after Gowon’s armies have joined local tribesmen brandishing machetes and cutlasses in “Ibo hunts.” In the Midwest, they rounded up thousands of Ibo and marched them into the bush for slaughter.
More than 50,000 people have been killed on both sides in the civil war, which has also brought thousands of refugees, mostly Ibo, from the rest of Nigeria crowding into already overpopulated Biafra. Ojukwu insists that Biafra’s sovereignty is not negotiable, has arrested 600 persons he suspects of plotting to bring about a compromise. For his part, Gowon does not seem to be demanding Ojukwu’s removal anymore, but does persist in his plan to carve the Eastern Region into three states, only one of which would be reserved for the Ibo. Weeks overdue, an Organization of African Unity mission recently came to Lagos to offer mediation. Its usefulness is limited because Ojukwu knows that the OAU regards secession as a dangerous precedent that might be tempting to tribal groups in other nations.
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