POLICE BRUTALITY FROM A CONSTITUTIONAL STANDPOINT

Police brutality has made headlines and created pandemonium in different parts of the world and in Nigeria like wisely.
This article is targeted at depicting the unconstitutionality of police brutality under the chapter if provisions of the 1999 constitution of the federal republic of Nigeria. It also highlights real and true life instances that occurred in different parts of Nigeria in time past.
Police brutality is a situation where unscrupulous and malicious member of the police department paramilitary/military force conduct themselves in a manner that violates the constitutional rights of member/citizen of the public.
It is a situation where people are molested, extorted, oppressed, intimidated, harassed, and threatened by uniform men.
It is also where uniform men use undue violence or inappropriate amount of force in enforcement of the law or in carrying out their lawful duty.
INSTANCES OF POLICE BRUTALITY IN NIGERIA AND APPLICATION OF CHAPTER FOUR (4) OF THE 1999 CONSTITUTIONAL OF THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA.
It is not farfetched for a legal mind or a lawyer averts his legal mind to human right and the unconstitutionality of police brutality whenever a case bordering on this brought before him.
On the June 8, 2018 three officers, averted a condemnable brutality. The errant police men accused a citizen, one Mr. Ademuwagan Tomitope Solomon of being a fraudster and sprayed him with tear-gas at the Chinese Town in Ojota, Lagos.
The victim being a asthmatic patient collapse and developed an asthmatic fit. This barbaric act by the police is a breach of the victim’s right to life, right to be treated with human dignity. The police have the power to effect arrest and invite anybody or suspect for interrogation and questioning but this power is not absolute.
Where the person is a suspect, he has constitutional right that automatically protects him from any form of interrogation without him first of all consulting his lawyer
And when such a suspect is to be arrested as a suspected fraudster, a warrant of arrest must be issued against him by a competent court of law and where no warrant is issued; the police can only invite him cordially without any use of force that is where the suspect is co-operating police. In this case the police had no warrant of arrest and instead of getting a warrant or using reasonable force, sprayed the victim tear gas. The spraying of tear-gas on the victim is an act of police brutality and therefore was unconstitutional and unlawful.
In April 2017 an apprentice barber Monday Idowu and his childhood friend Daniel Aya were shot with the same bullet one morning, Monday was shot in the chest the bullet skirted his lungs existed his chest and smacked into the neck of his friend Daniel Aya slump to the ground dead.
Also in Ondo police shot three farmers over refusal to give N80 bribe at an illegal road block Amusigbo along Ajowal Idoani road.
The 1999 constitution of the federal republic of Nigeria provides that every person has a right to life and no one shall be deprived intentionally of his life. Save in execution of the sentence of a court in respect of criminal offence of which he has been found guilty in Nigeria.
In times past we may have witnesses, seen or heard stories about thieves caught in the market place or neighborhood and how they were lynched upon and burnt with tyre and petrol.
Under the criminal laws in Nigeria private individuals came make an arrest only where the offenders caught committing the offences.
In Akwa Ibom state a man was caught red handed while he was trying to steal a motor cycle and was lynched upon by angry mob and without wasting time set him ablaze while he was still alive. The man died a barbaric, cruel and painful death while he was burnt alive with tyre and petrol. The sad thing is that this was happening under the presence of police personnel who could not handle the situation and take lawful custody of the offender.
The act of police brutality is also a form of jungle justice of on the part of private individual who effect arrest and decide to take law into their hands disregarding the fact and law that it is only a court of competent jurisdiction that has power to sentence and convict an accused appropriately. That is, an offenders life can only be deprived him save in execution of the sentence of a court of competent jurisdiction. Also, in the instance where such an offender is caught be private individuals, he must be taken into police custody and charged accordingly.
In these scenarios above, the offender/victim right to life, right to dignity of his person, rights to his personal liberty – right to fair hearing was denied him.
A young man by name Sunday was threatened by his neighbor who called police to arrest him after she had a quarrel with him because he used her bucket of water;
He was arrested and force to the police station without any reason and was also beaten in the police station by the police.
The act of the police officers in this instance amounts to harassment and therefore infringes on the human right of the said young man. The police officers in this instance were used by the said woman to harass a young man for using her bucket of water, he was tortured and battered on the authority of the woman who sent the police:- this act amounts to assault and it is also a breach of the young man to human dignity & right to personal liberty of his person:
The 1999 constitution of the federal republic of Nigeria provides that every person shall be entitled to his personal liberty and no person shall be deprived of such liberty.
The police officer knowing that there was no cause for the arrest had nothing to give as a reason for such arrest.
Any person who is arrested or detained shall be informed in writing within 24 hours (and in the language that he understands) of the facts and ground for his arrest or detention.
The term police brutality does not relate to police officers alone but compasses every security personnel including the Nigerian/Civil defense, Nigerian Drug law enforcement agent, members of the armed force. It includes every uniform personnel and law enforcement personnel who conducts themselves in a manner that is dangerous to the lives and property of other citizen.
Recently in Nigeria, according to reports, armed militants ambushed soldiers at a checkpoint at Iwukem, Etim Ekpo council of Awka Ibom state killing one soldiers and five civilian. In retaliation, a battalion of soldiers from the military base in the state went on rampage setting shops and houses ablaze in Iwukem.
The property of innocent people who absolutely had nothing to do with the attack on the soldiers were subsequently attacked and their properties ruthlessly destroy by the same soldiers who were deployed to protect them.
This act by the Nigerian army also amounts to brutality and therefore a gross violation of the fundamental human right as enshrined in chapter 4 in the 1999 constitution of the federal republic of Nigeria as amended.
Having illustrated the above scenarios of brutality meted out by the power infested and power drunk security operative in Nigeria, it is imperative that appropriate legislative, judicial and legal actions be taking to forestall the situation of police brutality as thousand of Nigerians in the past decade have lost their lives as result of this.
Stringent laws prohibiting and criminalizing police brutality should be passed as a bill in the National Assembly and subsequently enacted to law to curb the persistent increase of police brutality in Nigeria and also for the benefit and protection of civilian citizen.

OMANEHI ALEGWU DANIEL ESQ.