Despite passing a legislation that prohibits torture of crime suspects, Nigeria’s security agencies continue to maim individuals in their custody.
Nigeria’s anti-torture law enacted in 2017 criminalises physical torture of suspects such as “systematic beatings, head-bangings, punching, kicking, striking with rifle butts, and jumping on the stomach.”
But when Ndukwe Ekekwe was arrested barely a year later, the police officers punched him, hit him with rifle butts, and stabbed him in the head.
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“They wanted me to look like a criminal. The blood from my head drenched the cloth I was wearing,” Ekekwe, 37, tells The Africa Report.
Despite passing a legislation that prohibits torture of crime suspects, security agencies in Nigeria continue to batter and maim individuals in their custody.
Before the anti-torture bill was passed into law, Nigeria had ratified the United Nations Convention against Torture 16 years earlier. The country also has a national committee on the prevention of torture.
Despite the legal steps, no law enforcement official has been brought to justice under the anti-torture act.
“The level of awareness and, therefore, implementation of the act is still very low,” Okechukwu Nwanguma, executive director of the Rule of Law and Accountability Advocacy Centre (RULAAC), tells The Africa Report.
“There’s no demonstrable commitment by the authorities to end torture in Nigeria by ensuring effective implementation of the anti-torture act,” says Nwanguma.
Torturing victims
Ekekwe’s encounter with the police began in February 2018 when armed officers of the now defunct special anti-robbery squad (SARS) invaded his phone accessories shop in Lagos. They refused to tell him his offense and, instead, bundled him into their vehicle and drove off.
After assaulting and stabbing him, the police officers returned to the market with Ekekwe the next day and started disposing of goods from his shop.
After reportedly criticising the police action, he was found unconscious on the ground floor of the building. He was taken to different hospitals for treatment, but a spinal cord injury has confined him to a wheelchair ever since.
Last year, police officers arrested Thaddeus Ojokoh, a tailor in south-east Imo State. They accused the 53-year-old father of five of being a member of the separatist group, the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB).
He was detained for three months, amidst torture and starvation, Ojokoh’s cousin, Ikechukwu Amaechi, tells The Africa Report.
“If you saw the guy when he came out of that place, he was like a scarecrow. He could hardly walk because of the beatings and torture,” says Amaechi, who is also a journalist.
The torture and extra judicial killings by police officers climaxed during the nationwide #EndSARS protests in 2020, where young people, angered by the excesses of the law enforcement agencies, took to the streets.
The government responded by scrapping the notorious SARS and instituting investigative panels on police brutality.
Ekewe was at the panel in Lagos, where he testified about his torture and incapacitation. The panel awarded him N7.5m ($4,500) and recommended dismissal of the police officers.
“[But to] date] they have not dismissed the police officers,” Ekekwe’s lawyer at the panel, Olukoya Ogungbeje, tells The Africa Report. “It tells you that police authorities are complicit. There is no way they can sanction the police officers involved.”
Ekekwe says the police officers rendered him immobile and indigent, as the money from the panel was all spent on physiotherapy. In 2021, he relocated to Abia State, in Nigeria’s south-east region.
Lucrative business
In 2007, after visiting Nigeria, the UN special rapporteur on torture, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment issued a report, noting that torture and ill-treatment is widespread for those in police custody.
Activists say torture remains a lucrative business within Nigeria’s security circles, with law enforcement officials using it as the primary means of extracting confessions and extorting bribes.
After Ojokoh was arrested on 15 April 2023, he was paraded by the police to the media alongside eight others as members of the proscribed “IPOB terrorists”.
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Of the nine of them, only two are now living, says Amaechi, alleging that the police extra-judicially executed six of the suspects.
“After much torture and afraid that he was going to be killed, because I spoke to him, [the other suspect identified as Charles] Chilaka gave them N1.5m so he would be released,” says Amaechi.
Government response
Despite the Nigerian government’s attempts at implementation, torture remains widespread in crime detention centres.
In December 2023, Beatrice Jedy-Agba, Nigeria’s solicitor-general, urged judges to ensure full implementation of the anti-torture act and other relevant human rights instruments in the country.
One of the instruments, the administration of criminal justice act, requires judges and magistrates to regularly inspect detention facilities, including police stations, to ensure that suspects are treated fairly.
In 2022, a police commander allegedly harassed a magistrate who was conducting a routine inspection at a police command in Lagos. The police denied the claims and blamed the lawyers who accompanied the magistrate for taking pictures and video recordings.
Last week, Jedy-Agba said plans are ongoing to review the anti-torture act and improve mechanisms to discourage and eradicate torture in detention.
RULAAC’s Nwanguma says the government needs to demonstrate a genuine commitment to ending torture by ensuring the investigation and prosecution of offenders.
By Ben Ezeamalu, The Africa Report
