The subject matter should attract international attention. A suspect should be presumed innocent until proven guilty among members of the international community of human beings. I had no privilege of being a suspect during colonial days, but I have heard that treatment of suspects were far better than I recently experienced. For one good reason, I have come to believe that the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) is not organised for the welfare of Nigerians who are suspected of infraction of the law.
Governments through Nigeria’s history have failed to regard suspects as human beings worth some measure of humane treatment in the hands of those who enforce the laws. Yet, salus populi suprema lex esto (the welfare of the people is the essence of the law). No arrangement is made for food for inmates of awaiting trial cells. Investigating Police Officers (IPOs) dump suspects into cells for bail fees that have no law backing them up.
Charges for bail are levied on the basis of private needs of officers and men of the force. Yes, there are offences in the criminal code for which bail is not granted. But then, there are offences that should not leave human beings in police custody under flimsy excuses that no one has shown up to bail suspects.
I encountered a number of inmates who have stayed in police custody with neither formal court charges nor visits from their relations. The terrorism among police officers preclude relations of suspects from showing up to give food to their wards or seek their release, especially where such relations do not have the huge demands for bail inflicted on convicts with no discernible crime suspicion. Suspects are desperado beggars from passers-by within police premises.
Dehumanisation of inmates is palpable. People who visit are subjected to tolls that are not within the law when they approach to ask after their relations. Such visitors get the impression that being in police custody is similar to being in a gulag. Visitors are harassed by officers and men of the police force into parting with money, as if their lives depend on what they can expropriate from people who come to bring succour to their relations through meals and legal aid.
Antagonism is offered. People are frightened with stone faces that are eloquent in their demand for ‘tips’ before attention is offered. The awaiting trial cells are similar to a prison for condemned terrorists who must not be approached unless orders come from above. I did not see any indication that there are rules of conduct drilled into police personnel on conduct meted out to people who are in extended distress.
Nigeria is fast becoming a nation where side benefits of people in authority determine most things. It is a road that must not be engaged, if we desire to stand a chance to count in civilisation. As it is, we are hurtling into a chasm of utter evaporation of humanity, fellow feeling and social responsibility of citizens by people in authority, no matter how way down in rank.
Who keeps custody of bail funds? It is clear that such funds are kept by senior officers in each branch with no receipts offered to payers. It imbues such officers with prolonged status and trust. They certainly account in part to senior police officers who are visibly delighted when large kills are brought to their attention. The senior officers have a string of cronies whom they send out at will to make arrests under flimsy and sometime false complaints levied against people who have capacity to meet their brazen demands.
Policemen have constituted themselves into their own revenue collection centre, and this is not wholesome in a polity that aspires to social well-being of the community they are employed to serve. No wonder there are many citizens in awaiting trial cells whose conditions are pathetic and whose future has been rendered bleak on account of false or flimsy allegations against assailants who have the means to invite the law on those who cross their path, even when nothing significant is lost to them.
I am now witness to the fact that people can be put away in police cells where such people have power maniacs on their tail. The picture is frightening for those who had thought that there was some modicum of safety valve for upright citizens. Terror from those who are thieves of the commonwealth is now real. If I, a senior citizen of no mean national status, could be subjected to less than fair treatment in a matter in which communal trust imbued on me by my people could be contested by common criminals who should really be in jail on account of their breaches of trust in public office and have come out of it stinking rich and so must prevail in their community no matter how vile and atrocious to commonsense their objective may be, there is little hope for the entire nation in the medium term. A failed state is up ahead unless apparatuses of law enforcement are seriously overhauled and sanctions levied and enforced.