Unless there is a genuine commitment to implementing Police reforms that address the fundamental problems facing the nation’s Police systems, Nigerians will continue to lament and condemn police killings and harassment whenever it happens.
The view came from the Executive Director, Rule of Law and Accountability Advocacy Centre, RULAAC, Okechukwu Nwanguma, in response to the Christmas Day killing of a Lagos-based lawyer, by a Police operative in Lagos.
The late Mrs Omobolanle Raheem, her sister, and four children were said to be returning from a Christmas outing in their car at about 11.00 a.m. when the police man allegedly shot at her vehicle and the bullet hit her.
She was said to have died later.
Reacting to the development, the RULAAC Executive Director, said the continued unlawful police killings and brutality calls for deeper understanding of the root causes of the problems.
“It is the view of RULAAC that the persistence of unlawful police killings calls for deeper understanding of the root causes.
“If after the October 2020 EndSARS protests, extortion, torture, extrajudicial killings and other forms of police brutality remain prevalent, then there is need for serious reassessment to understand the causes and apply the appropriate solutions,” he said.
Nwanguma noted that although impunity by Police operatives, is a big concern to stakeholders, there is a greater need to tackle the problem from the root, which is the recruitment process.
“There is no doubt that impunity, a consequence of the state’s failure to ensure effective investigation of incidents with a view to bringing perpetrators to account is a key causative factor. But I think that that alone will not suffice unless another factor is addressed.
“That other factor is the compromised process of police recruitment which circumvents the established guidelines and allows unqualified, unfit and untrainable people to find their way into the police.
“An additional factor is the failure to ensure psychological evaluation of candidates before they are recruited and periodically while in service to ensure that they are mentally fit to be entrusted with firearms.
“Other factors are the deficit in forensic capabilities and professional standards, and poor working conditions which impoverish personnel and make them prone to corruption and violence.
“All these are contributory to the predatory behavior and tendency to easily misuse firearms,” the RULAAC boss insisted.
He made it clear that unless there is a genuine commitment to implement reforms that address these problems, the nation will only continue to lament and condemn after every incident and wait for the next to happen.
He said; “And then police authorities will do no more than give assurances of investigation and that may be the end.
“Addressing these challenges calls for competent leadership both at the level of the police and at the political level.”
