It Is Not Within The Statutory Powers Of The Police To Demand For Driver's License

 By Solomon Akobe

It is no longer breaking news that Police Officers in Nigeria have been banned from demanding for Custom papers and tinted glass permits. But, for those who are not yet aware, it is necessary to state that the ban was made public via a tweet on Sunday by the Nigeria Police, Force Public Relations Officer, Muyiwa Adejobi. The said tweet reads in part:

“No policeman should demand your customs papers. Except they are on joint operation, but not just on mere routine checks. We have suspended issuance of tinted glass permits, so we don’t expect our men to disturb Nigerians on this. We are to stop any vehicle with tints, search the vehicles, and its occupants, but not to delay for not having tinted glass permits.”

The above is the Police's tweet that have got Nigerians talking commendably about the current Police hierarchy.

Nigeria: When Individuals Are Stronger Than State Institutions

By Adewale Kupoluyi

William Easterly is a Professor of Economics at the New York University, who in a 2006 publication: The White Man’s Burden: Why the West’s Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Harm and So Little Good, enunciated that fragile states are plagued by two factors, namely: political identity fragmentation and weak national institutions in their development.

According to him, states with poor institutions have negative effects on growth and public policy implementation.

Relying on this line of argument, what any serious democracy should strive for should be the state whereby institutions are stronger than individuals or persons, no matter how powerful. What usually transpires in the Nigerian public affairs tends to suggest otherwise. 

Land Use Charge: Lagos Police Warns Intending Protesters

Press Release

The attention of Lagos State Police Command has been drawn to the news making the rounds that a  group of persons under the sponsorship of  some mischief makers, and who are   masquerading as civil rights activists, intends to block the Third Mainland Bridge and  occupy some critical public infrastructures in Lagos to protest the increase in the Land Use Charge by the government of Lagos state.

Nigeria: Who And Where Are The Criminals?

By Anthony Cardinal Olubunmi Okogie

“Everyone is talking about crime. Tell me, who are the criminals?” So sang, more than forty years ago, the Jamaican artiste Peter Torsh in his album “Equal rights”. Today, that question has become extraordinarily pertinent in our beloved country Nigeria. Here in Nigeria, we talk of crimes: armed robbery, kidnapping, and now, murder by herdsmen.  But who and where are the criminals?  Are we pretending not to know them?  And are we pretending not to know where they are?  But our God of JUSTICE looks on!

*Cardinal Okogie

Nigerians are familiar with the drama of parade of suspects. On prime time television, the police treats us to it. Some men and women are apprehended by the police, made to sit by dangerous weapons, and paraded as criminals.  And the story ends there.  We hear of no prosecution, no conviction, no sentencing. 

IGP And The Missing Police Vehicles

By Paul Onomuakpokpo  

Since governance in these climes is often appropriated by those we entrust with leadership as a means of unbridled material acquisition, we are regularly scandalised by sleaze in public offices. The reports on such venalities come to the public with such rapidity that we do not infrequently fail in a bid to track them. But this rapidity serves well the opprobrious cravings of our public officials. Let the scandals break today, they are not bothered – by tomorrow other scandals would break that would take away the attention of the citizens from those of today.

*President Buhari and IGP Idris

Yet, at a time of economic recession that has thrown up the overarching need for transparency and prudent management of fast-vanishing resources for effective governance, we would not allow an opportunity to conserve the nation’s money to slip by. One of such opportunities that we must seize is the recovery of some police vehicles that have been allegedly stolen.

We have been told that the office of the inspector-general of police has been stripped bare of its vehicles. The culprit has been identified as the former inspector-general of police Solomon Arase. He allegedly took away 24 vehicles of the police at the end of his tenure. Among these vehicles were two BMW 7 series, one armoured. The incumbent Inspector-General of Police, Ibrahim Idris first made the allegation in July. He lamented how the haemorrhage of police vehicles led to his using a rickety one to travel somewhere with President Muhammadu Buhari. When the latter saw it, he was so outraged that he asked him what he was doing with it.

Three months after, the allegation is still on. But this time, the allegation has been framed in a way to present Arase as admitting to stealing 24 vehicles, out of which 19 have been recovered. But Arase has insisted that he did not steal the vehicles in the first place. He has asked his successor Idris to make available the registration numbers of the vehicles allegedly stolen.

Fed Govt’s Denial Of Amnesty International Report On Use Of Torture By Nigeria Police

(pix: nairaland) 

By Okechukwu Nwanguma

Reports in several Nigerian newspapers of September 23, 2014 quoted Dr. S. S. Ameh, a senior advocate of Nigeria (SAN) and the Chairman of the National Committee Against Torture (NCAT), as having dismissed the recent report by Amnesty International (AI) entitled ‘Welcometo Hell-Torture and other ill-treatment in Nigeria’.

The AI’s report which documented the widespread use of torture by Nigerian Police Force, based on factual and credible evidence gathered over a period of ten years, was released on September 18, 2014.

The report stated inter alia, that “Nigeria's police and military routinely torture women, men, and children – some as young as 12 ... Across the country, the scope and severity of torture inflicted on Nigeria's women, men and children by the authorities [that are] supposed to protect them is shocking to even the most hardened human rights observer.”

It further, rightly observed that “Torture is not even a criminal offence in Nigeria’’ and urged that ‘The country’s parliament must immediately take this long overdue step and pass a law criminalizing torture. There is no excuse for further delay.”