Juliana Francis
We are in a society where the Police have to make do with so many shortcomings.
It’s shocking to state that even in this 21st Century; the Nigerian Police Force has not yet embraced scientific policing.
The scientific policing embraces forensic analysis of evidences gathered, DNA, polygraph, fingerprints, data analysis, profiling of suspects, among others.
This means a police investigator will have to use any of the above mentioned means to nail a suspect before arresting him or her.
And because the Nigerian Police is yet to embrace scientific policing, no thanks to our lawmakers and indifferent different administrations in the country, the Police will continue to make do with what it has at its disposal.
These overworked policemen will continue to be ordered by their superiors in air-conditioned offices to make arrests and to solve crimes. In order to solve these crimes, 90 percent of these policemen will first continue to make arrest before getting confessions and evidences.
Everyone wants results, but nobody cares how these policemen achieve these results. So, they’ll continue to arrest suspects, real or imagined, and will continue to use torture on most of them to elicits confession and close cases.
That you’re a young Nigerian doesn’t preclude you from being subject to torture. Torture is not funny. Torture can make you confess to a crime you didn’t commit or know anything about. The best bet is not to run afoul of the law.
Avoid a life of crime and avoid running with friends known or suspected to be involved in crimes. I’ve never been able to understand the fashion in deliberately running with cultists, armed robbers, and cyber thieves, among others.
One day, you’ll come to realise that there’s nothing trendy in romancing and hobnobbing with criminals. I just hope by then, it wouldn’t be too late for your or your parents.
Believe me, you don’t want to be caught by the Nigerian Police and subjected to torture.
I have seen victims of torture and interviewed victims of torture and believe me, their stories are chilling and traumatising to say the least.
Some years ago, I interviewed a 19 year old boy. He was returning from a night party when he ran into a pack of Oodua Peoples’ Congress (OPC) members. They suspected him of being an armed robber, but he repeatedly denied being one. They didn’t believe him and decided to make him ‘confess,’ to being a robber. They reasoned that it was only a criminal that would be out at such an ungodly hour.
He told me that as they tortured and kept screaming at him to mention the names of his partners. He was a kid from a broken home and took to the work of conductor to survive.
He has worked with several drivers. He doesn’t have a home and sleeps with any of the drivers he has worked with. Sometimes, he sleeps in a garage.
He told me that when he feared the OPC men would torture him to death, he started mentioning the names of all the drivers he had worked with.
He used to sleep in some of their houses and eat food prepared by their wives. But in the throes of pains and death staring and waiting to take him, he mentioned the names of these men who had been nothing but kindness to him. He then took the OPC men to some of their houses.
The men were beaten black and blue before being handed over to the Raider Team at the State Criminal Investigations Department (SCID), Panti, Yaba, Lagos State. The Raider Team, still working on his confession, went to arrest more commercial bus drivers. It was a circus and a mess.
They were about seven or nine men. These men were tortured until they admitted being armed robbers. Back in those days, I was quite young and spent most of my days at police stations.
Most times I go to Panti at morning hours, to leave at night, with my handbag filled with stories.
I was adventurous. Lol.
The late Adekunle Ojo was then the Officer in Charge (OC) of Raider Teams. I was presented with these suspects.
After interviewing them for hours, and asking series of questions, their stories were just not falling into place.
Journalism is not a magic. It’s about stories, information and cohesion. The stories have to make sense. There shouldn’t be puzzles and loopholes. A good reporter must be able to notice holes in stories and fill them by asking questions.
The suspects’ stories kept changing until I became frustrated. Something was off. I decided to go back to the source of the arrest and story.
Yes, the teenage suspect. The conductor.
On that particular day of the interview, he was clutching a bible and wearing a white rosary. Yes, being in police detention can make you to quickly surrender your life to God.
I went back to him and subjected him to an intense interrogation until he caved in and told me that he lied against all the men. He lied because of the torture. It was too much for him. No matter your age, nobody can withstand torture.
I started my interview afresh and found out that all the mentioned men were bus drivers. What they had in common was the teenage driver and they all plied Oshodi-Mile2-Iyano-Oba routes.
These drivers had initially denied being armed robbers to the Raider Team, but had to confess to being robbers because the policemen tortured them.
I went to Ojo to tell him my findings. I told him the men were innocent. I told him what the teenager told me, things he didn’t and couldn’t tell the Police. Ojo is usually a temperamental guy, but that day, he listened to me.
The drivers and the boy were later allowed to go, but I can tell you for free, that for days they would be having nightmares after nightmares. Torture is a traumatising experience for anyone.
That’s what torture does; it makes you to tell lies, implicating yourself and people you cherish.
Don’t ever get into a situation where you’ll be arrested. Don’t allow yourself to be mixed up in crime.
Why will a teenage boy be returning from a party between midnight and 1: am?
In some climes, the way adult suspects are treated is different from the way teenagers are treated. In other climes, young folks are provided with lawyers when they are arrested, in Nigeria, they are taken into the torture chamber.
In Nigeria, torture knows no age, only class. It’s rare to find the child of a rich folks being tortured.
Don’t do crime in order to avoid arrest and avoid torture. I’ve seen a grown up man crying as he narrated how he was tortured. He was strip, hung suspended while a broomstick was inserted into his manhood.
I have seen a young girl arrested when police couldn’t find her boyfriend. She was arrested in proxy. A beer bottle was inserted into her private part until she started bleeding. The policemen wanted her to tell them where to find her boyfriend.
Just this year in Anambra State, two undergraduates were arrested while returning to their lodge. They didn’t commit any crime. They were at the wrong place, at the wrong time.
Their legs and hands were tied behind them and they were repeatedly beaten by machetes until they ‘confessed’ to being cult members. An estate agent, arrested by Operatives of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), was subjected to torture until he ran mad. When the officers realised he had gone mad, they called his family to come and take him. He died in hospital.
There are so many cases to make references to, but this article is not about cataloguing tragedies. It’s about urging you as a young man and woman to avoid a life of crime.
If you’re already involved in crime, jettison it and begin a fresh start. It’s never late to turn a new leaf. The truth is this, as long as our government is not ready to overhaul the Police, equipping it with the right and necessary tools, including introducing scientific policing, our policemen will keep resorting to torture to solve crimes and elicit confessions.
It’s no rocket science; these policemen make do with what they have at their disposals.
So, before you take to crime, remember the Nigerian Police and its torture chambers.
First Published 2020
