The Inspector General of Police, Solomon Arase, was on Tuesday urged to immediately reorganize the Nigeria Police Force and do everything with his power to halt extrajudicial killings of suspects in police custody.
The call was made by the National Network on Police Reforms in Nigeria and other stakeholders at the public presentation of: “Through The Lens of The Media, Vol. 2,” and the revised Lagos State Coroner’s Law (2007).
The event was supported by Justice for All Programme of the British Department for International Development.
The National Coordinator of NOPRIN, Okechukwu Nwanguma, said aside reorganizing the police generally, Arase should pay special attention to the Special Anti-Robbery Squads across the nation.
Nwanguma added: “The IGP should investigate all allegations of crime and abuse by the officers in charge and other personnel of SARS. He should ensure that SARS operatives are held accountable for unlawful detention, torture, extortion, extrajudicial killings and disappearances of persons held in their custody.”
According to him, the act of impunity continues to characterize the affairs of the police, when officials that shoot innocent civilians are only posted around until the cases were forgotten.
He noted that police oversight agencies had also proved incapable of reining in some of these practices.
Some of the participants insisted that President Muhammadu Buhari should ensure the recruitment process into the Nigeria police is sanitized.
“Police Officers should be properly trained. The NPF should be adequately funded and equipped with modern crime intelligence and investigative infrastructure that will make resort to violence unwarranted or rare. It’s important to boost morale, discourage corruption and humanize the service by improving the conditions of service in the police,” said Nwanguma.
Stating statistics that covers between December 2013 to May 2015, Nwanguma said among uniform personnel, the police perpetrated more brutality, torture, unlawful killings, unlawful detention and sexual and gender based violence than any other.
In the statistics, the military tagged behind police, followed by officials of the Lagos State Traffic Management Agency.