The Chairman of the Governing Council of the National Human Rights Commission, Prof. Chidi Odinkalu, has accused the police of extra-judicial killings totalling over 5,000 annually.
Odinkalu made the allegation on Monday in Abuja at a workshop on the Nigerian Criminal Justice System.
He said that the practice has become rampant over the years because the country’s legal system does not catch up with offenders, adding: “By some estimates, the police executes over 5,000 detainees summarily every year.
“We have a criminal justice system that is unable to catch those who violate its rules; unable to ensure accountability even for the most basic crimes; detains those whom it cannot convict often for longer than it can hold them if it were to convict them; and, without consequences, kills many on whom it can’t even pin any charges of criminal conduct.
“In one sentence, our criminal justice system has normalised abnormality.
“Many detainees in police cells are held in prisons for over the constitutionally permissible 48 hours and many police cells have detainees who have been held without being arraigned for over six months and, in some cases, over 12 months.”