By Okechukwu Nwanguma
The reported deaths of dozens of suspected illegal miners while in the custody of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) in Niger State should compel Nigeria to confront a problem that goes considerably beyond the circumstances of this particular tragedy.
The immediate questions are unavoidable. How many people were detained? On what legal basis and for how long? In what conditions were they held? Were their arrests and detention properly documented? Were their families informed? Did they have access to lawyers? Were they medically screened? Who inspected the detention facility? What did supervising officers know about the conditions in which they were being held? And, ultimately, how did people who entered the custody of the State alive come out dead?
These questions must be answered through an investigation that is prompt, independent, transparent and capable of establishing individual and command responsibility. Where evidence establishes criminal responsibility, those responsible should face prosecution in accordance with the law.
But there is another question Nigeria must ask: Who is watching the places where the State takes away people’s liberty?
*Detention Does Not Begin and End With the Police*
Public discussion about unlawful detention and custodial abuse in Nigeria tends understandably to focus on the Nigeria Police Force. This reflects both the scale of police operations and the long history of allegations involving police detention facilities. But the Nigerian detention landscape is much wider.
People may find themselves in the custody of the NSCDC, Department of State Services, National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, Economic and Financial Crimes Commission and other agencies exercising statutory powers of arrest. There are also continuing concerns about detention associated with military operations and informal or quasi-state security formations in different parts of the country.
Some of these facilities receive considerably less public scrutiny than police stations and correctional centres. That creates a dangerous accountability gap.
The fundamental rights of a person in custody cannot depend upon the insignia on the uniform of the agency that arrested him or her. Once the State deprives an individual of liberty, it assumes a heightened responsibility for that person’s safety, dignity and welfare.
A detainee held by the NSCDC is not entitled to less protection than someone held at a police station. Neither is a person held by the DSS, NDLEA or another law-enforcement institution.
The governing principle should therefore be straightforward:
Wherever the State detains a human being, independent oversight must follow.
*We Already Have Safeguards – Why Are They Not Working?*
Part of the difficulty is that Nigeria does not entirely lack mechanisms for monitoring detention.
The Administration of Criminal Justice Act provides for inspection of police stations and other places of detention by designated judicial officers. The purpose is important: to examine records, inquire into the circumstances surrounding arrests and detention, and take appropriate action where persons are being unlawfully detained.
The National Human Rights Commission also has statutory powers relating to visits to police cells and other places of detention in order to assess conditions and make appropriate recommendations.
Chief Judges additionally exercise important responsibilities concerning the administration of criminal justice and custodial institutions.
The Nigerian Bar Association has human-rights structures at national and branch levels. Civil society organisations have for decades documented torture, unlawful detention, extortion, enforced disappearance and other custodial violations.
Then there is the Police Duty Solicitor Scheme (PDSS), an important intervention designed to ensure that persons arrested and detained at police stations can obtain early access to legal assistance.
The problem therefore is not simply the absence of institutions. It is the fragmentation, inconsistency and inadequate implementation of the safeguards that already exist.
*We should be asking some uncomfortable questions.*
– How frequently are statutory inspections of detention facilities actually conducted?
– Which facilities were visited in the last twelve months?
– What violations were discovered?
– What remedial actions followed?
– Are records of these inspections maintained?
– Does anybody maintain a comprehensive list of all facilities in Nigeria where law-enforcement agencies hold people?
– And what happens to detention facilities that operate outside regular public scrutiny?
These questions should not arise only after people die.
*Extend the Principle Behind PDSS*
The ongoing discussion about extending the Police Duty Solicitor Scheme beyond conventional police detention facilities deserves serious consideration.
But what Nigeria requires is broader than merely changing the name or geographical reach of a programme.
The principle behind PDSS is what matters: access to legal assistance should begin as early as possible after arrest.
A lawyer who sees a detainee shortly after arrest can do considerably more than prepare for a future criminal trial.
The lawyer can establish where the person is being held, determine the allegation against him or her, notify relatives, challenge unlawful detention, seek bail where appropriate, observe injuries, raise concerns about torture or coercive interrogation and create an independent record of the detainee’s condition.
Early legal access is therefore not merely a defence service. It is a safeguard against disappearance, torture, extortion and prolonged unlawful detention.
Why should that protection disappear simply because the arresting authority is not the Nigeria Police Force?
Nigeria should explore a national duty-solicitor system covering all recognised pre-trial detention facilities, irrespective of the agency controlling them.
*The Problem of Hidden Detention*
There is an even more troubling dimension.
Nigeria cannot effectively monitor detention facilities if it does not know where all detainees are being held.
Every government institution authorised to arrest or detain people should therefore be required to declare and register every facility it uses for detention.
*No person should be held in an undeclared facility.*
There should be a national register showing, at minimum, the agency responsible for each facility, its authorised capacity, the officers responsible for custody administration and the institutions responsible for inspecting it.
Individual custody records should similarly establish when a person was arrested, by whom, the reason for arrest, when the person arrived at the facility, medical condition on arrival, notification of relatives, access to counsel, movements between facilities, court appearances and eventual release or transfer.
This is basic custodial administration.
Without reliable records, unlawful detention becomes easier to conceal and accountability becomes considerably harder to establish.
*Inspections Must Be Real, Not Ceremonial*
A detention inspection system is useful only when inspections are meaningful.
Inspectors should be able to arrive without advance notice where the law permits, enter cells, examine custody registers, verify the number and identity of detainees, speak confidentially with detainees and examine conditions including ventilation, sanitation, access to drinking water, food and medical treatment.
They should also determine whether children are being detained with adults, whether women are held in appropriate facilities, whether detainees show signs of torture or ill-treatment and whether anyone has remained in detention beyond legally permissible periods without judicial authorisation.
Most importantly, inspection findings must lead somewhere.
A system in which inspectors repeatedly identify violations but nobody is sanctioned or required to correct them eventually becomes another administrative ritual.
There must therefore be escalation procedures for serious violations, including immediate referral for investigation where torture, disappearance, suspicious injury or custodial death is discovered.
*Custodial Deaths Require Independent Investigation*
Deaths in custody demand an especially high level of scrutiny because the deceased was under the control of the State.
An institution whose personnel or facilities are implicated may conduct an internal administrative investigation, but that cannot by itself satisfy the need for independent accountability.
Where deaths occur in custody, there should be prompt preservation of the scene and records, identification and protection of witnesses, independent autopsies where appropriate, access for families to relevant information and investigation by an institution sufficiently independent of the officers and agency whose conduct is under examination.
*Command responsibility must also form part of the inquiry.*
Accountability should not stop with whichever junior officer happened to be physically present. Investigators must determine who authorised the detention, who knew how many people were being held, who was responsible for the facility, whether concerns were reported upwards and what supervisory officers did or failed to do.
The purpose is not to prejudge criminal responsibility. It is precisely the opposite: to establish responsibility through evidence rather than institutional self-exoneration or public speculation.
*From Police Reform to Custodial Accountability*
RULAAC’s documentation of detention practices across different parts of Nigeria has repeatedly shown why custodial reform cannot be reduced to constructing better cells.
Problems can begin from the moment of arrest and continue through transportation, booking, interrogation, access to lawyers and relatives, medical care, bail decisions, remand proceedings and eventual transfer or release.
Torture and coercive interrogation, prolonged detention, arrests in lieu of suspects, poor custody records, denial of access to lawyers and relatives, extortion around bail and unhealthy detention conditions are interconnected problems.
CCTV can help. Proper custody registers can help. Lawyers can help. Judicial inspections can help. Human-rights monitoring can help.
But no single safeguard is sufficient. Nigeria needs these mechanisms to reinforce one another.
*A National Detention Oversight Framework*
The Federal Government should use the current controversy as an opportunity for systemic reform rather than treating the reported NSCDC deaths as an isolated institutional embarrassment.
Nigeria needs a coordinated National Detention Oversight Framework covering every public institution exercising powers of arrest and detention.
Such a framework should include:
1. A comprehensive national register of detention facilities operated by the police and every other law-enforcement and security agency.
2. Mandatory registration of every detainee, including time and grounds of arrest, arresting officers, place of detention, medical condition, access to counsel and relatives, transfers and eventual disposition.
3. Effective judicial inspections of detention facilities, with documented findings and follow-up actions.
4. Regular independent human-rights monitoring, including access by the National Human Rights Commission and other institutions authorised by law.
5. Extension of duty-solicitor/legal-aid arrangements to recognised detention facilities operated by agencies other than the police.
6. Immediate medical screening upon admission into custody, with appropriate documentation and referral.
7. Prompt notification of relatives or another nominated person when an individual is taken into custody.
8. Effective CCTV coverage of appropriate custody and common areas, subject to safeguards for privacy, evidence preservation and independent access to recordings.
9. Mandatory independent investigation of deaths, disappearances, torture allegations and serious injuries in custody.
10. Periodic publication of detention statistics and inspection outcomes, while protecting legitimate personal and investigative information.
*The Test Is What Happens After Minna*
The deaths reported in Niger State have attracted national attention because of their scale.
But Nigeria should resist the familiar cycle in which outrage follows tragedy, an investigation is announced, public attention moves elsewhere and the structural conditions that made the tragedy possible remain untouched.
The real test of accountability will not simply be whether some officials are suspended.
It will be whether investigators establish what happened and responsibility is assigned according to evidence; whether families receive credible answers; whether anyone found criminally responsible is prosecuted; and whether the institutional failures exposed by the incident are corrected.
Most importantly, Nigeria must stop waiting for deaths before asking questions about detention conditions.
The right question is no longer simply:
Who monitors police cells?
It is:
Who monitors every place in Nigeria where the State deprives a human being of liberty?
Until Nigeria can answer that question confidently, transparently and institutionally, another custodial tragedy may occur somewhere outside public view.
And when it does, we should not be able to say that we did not know where the gaps were.
