Beyond one officer: What the Newton Isokpehi incident reveals about police culture in Nigeria
By Okechukwu Nwanguma
The viral video of a police officer, identified as Newton Isokpehi, threatening to kill anyone who filmed him while on duty has understandably provoked outrage across Nigeria. The subsequent announcement by the Nigeria Police Force that he had been arrested and subjected to disciplinary processes may satisfy immediate public anger. But the deeper question remains: will punishing one officer change the culture that produced such conduct?
The answer is no.
What Nigerians witnessed in that video was not merely the misconduct of one angry officer. It was a glimpse into a dangerous institutional culture that still exists within segments of the police – a culture shaped by impunity, hostility to accountability, abuse of power, and a distorted understanding of the relationship between citizens and law enforcement.
The officer later attributed his outburst to frustration arising from poor welfare, operational trauma, and the difficult conditions under which many police officers work. Those concerns are real and should not be dismissed lightly. Nigerian police officers often operate under extremely harsh conditions: inadequate salaries, poor barracks, insufficient insurance, long deployments, psychological stress, and inadequate support systems. These realities deserve urgent attention.
However, hardship does not justify threatening citizens with death for exercising their constitutional rights.
In any democratic society, police officers are public servants, not rulers. Their powers are derived from the law and must remain subject to public scrutiny. The right of citizens to record police officers performing their duties in public spaces is not an act of hostility against the police. It is an important democratic safeguard against abuse and impunity.
Indeed, many of the most important revelations of police brutality and misconduct in Nigeria and around the world have emerged because ordinary citizens recorded what authorities initially denied. Video evidence has exposed torture, extortion, unlawful shootings, and extrajudicial killings that may otherwise have been concealed. At the same time, recordings can also protect professional police officers from false accusations.
This is why it is troubling that despite recent clarification by police authorities affirming citizens’ rights to record officers on duty, some officers still perceive transparency as a threat rather than as part of democratic policing.
An officer who becomes enraged simply because he is being recorded while armed and exercising coercive authority raises legitimate concerns about what he fears public scrutiny might reveal.
The incident also highlights a broader problem within policing in Nigeria: the persistence of a command-and-control mentality inherited from authoritarian eras. Too often, some officers still see citizens not as rights-bearing members of the public they are sworn to serve, but as subjects to be controlled through intimidation and fear.
Punishment alone cannot fix this.
Disciplining officers who engage in misconduct is necessary. Without accountability, reform becomes meaningless. But focusing solely on punishment after public outrage is reactive and insufficient. It addresses symptoms while leaving underlying institutional problems untouched.
What is required is comprehensive cultural and structural reform.
Recruitment into the police must prioritize integrity, emotional stability, professionalism, and respect for constitutional rights – not merely physical ability or patronage networks. Training must go beyond weapons handling and obedience to authority. Officers need sustained education in human rights, de-escalation techniques, ethics, conflict management, and democratic policing standards.
Leadership within the police hierarchy also matters enormously. Senior officers who tolerate corruption, brutality, extortion, and abuse undermine every public promise of reform. Institutional culture is shaped from the top. If accountability is selective or cosmetic, junior officers quickly learn that impunity remains the true operating principle.
At the same time, welfare reform cannot continue to be ignored. Officers who work under degrading and traumatic conditions are more likely to become frustrated, aggressive, cynical, and disconnected from the communities they police. Better welfare alone will not end abuse, but sustainable reform is impossible without addressing the living and working conditions of officers.
The incident equally reinforces the urgent need for body-worn cameras and broader accountability technologies within the Nigeria Police Force. Ideally, officers on patrol and operational duties should wear body cameras as standard practice. Body cameras can protect both citizens and officers, improve evidence gathering, discourage misconduct, and build public trust through transparency.
Most importantly, the police institution must fundamentally redefine its relationship with citizens. Democratic policing cannot coexist with a mentality that treats accountability as hostility or transparency as provocation. Public trust cannot be built through fear, threats, or intimidation. It can only be earned through professionalism, openness, restraint, and respect for human dignity.
The conversation generated by the Newton Isokpehi incident should therefore not end with one arrest or one apology. It should force a broader national reflection on the kind of police culture Nigeria wants to sustain and the kind of policing democracy requires.
Culture changes not when one officer is punished, but when institutions consistently reward professionalism, enforce accountability, reject impunity, and embrace the principle that no one – including those entrusted with enforcing the law – is above the law.
Nwanguma is the Executive Director of Rule of Law and Accountability Advocacy Centre (RULAAC)
