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| The Nigeria Police Force, tasked with maintaining law and order, has been perpetrating a gross violation of citizens’ rights through indiscriminate arrests. For such a long time, this alarming trend has left innocent individuals languishing in detention for years. The tragic experience of Mr. Kazeem, who spent seventeen years in prison awaiting a trial that never happened, described only a fraction of the injustice experienced by individuals arrested indiscriminately in Nigeria, according to X (formerly Twitter). Likewise, on the July 13, 2024, a lady whose X handle is @Debbie_kiki narrated how men of the police force raided the hospital she and her husband visited to see a sick relative. She stated, her husband was arrested indiscriminately alongside other men. Amongst them was a young boy who was only sixteen years of age. A day after, she claimed they paid the sum of fifty thousand naira (N50,000) to bail her husband, who was beaten severally and threatened with false charge of being in possession of hard drugs. Another victim is a young man identified as @_djtrendy on X. He narrated how he was arrested while serving as a DJ in a lounge on July 7, 2024, when men of the police force raided the lounge. According to him, his laptop was taken, and when he visited the station to claim the same, he was detained by the manager of the lounge and maliciously accused of being a cultist. The Nigerian Constitution 1999 (as amended) and the Police Act do regulate arrests. Section 35 of the constitution guarantees the right to personal liberty, while section 38 of the Police Act 2020 requires warrants of arrest except in exceptional circumstances. Men of the police force have frequently violated these provisions by indiscriminately arresting innocent citizens only with the intention of extorting them of their hard-earned money. Indiscriminate arrest is a direct violation of human rights, which causes emotional trauma to victims and stigmatization. It's currently a major cause of overcrowding in correctional facilities in Nigeria. To solve the congestion problem, we must address one of the root causes: indiscriminate arrest. In order to engender the rule of law, urgent reforms are necessary to ensure that the police and other law enforcement agencies operate within the bounds of the law, upholding the principles of justice and protecting the innocent. |
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