In its 2009 report titled, “Killing at Will: Extrajudicial Executions and Other Unlawful Killings by the Police in Nigeria,” Amnesty International documented, among several others, the story of a 39-year-old commercial motorcyclist, Aneke Okorie, who was shot on the stomach at a checkpoint in Emene, Enugu State, on May 15, 2009, for failing to pay a bribe to a policeman.

According to the report, Okorie died on the way to the hospital. The report quoted an eyewitness as telling AI that the policeman, who shot Okorie, hung his riffle on Okorie’s neck and tagged him an “armed robber”.

Amnesty International said, “Unnecessary and unlawful use of firearms by the NPF is not a question of a few isolated cases, but of a widespread phenomenon. Many unlawful killings happen during police operations. In other cases, the police shoot and kill drivers who fail to pay them bribes at checkpoints. Some are killed in the street because, as the police later claim, they are ‘armed robbers’; others are killed after arrest, allegedly for attempting to escape. Many disappear in police custody – and are likely to have been extrajudicially executed. Others die because they are denied life-saving medical treatment. In many of these cases, the police take advantage of flawed and inadequate legislation to cover up their actions.”

And worried by the spate of extrajudicial killings in the country, the Nigerian Bar Association dedicated a session of its just-concluded 60th Annual General Conference to dissect the issue and suggest solutions.

The session, with the theme, “Security and Extrajudicial Killings,” was moderated by Chibuike Nwokeukwu (SAN) and featured Chief Mike Ozekhome (SAN), Mr Monday Ubani and Mr Ikhide Ehighelua.

While the four lawyers commonly held the view that extrajudicial killing was a threat to the nation and should be stopped in its track, they, however, disagreed on the nature of the deserving punishment for extrajudicial killer policemen.

The debate began with Ubani lamenting that extrajudicial killings continued to go on, because the policemen involved were rarely punished. He called for a law that would expressly say anyone who kills extrajudicially should be given the death penalty.

“The moment we punish crime in this part of the world and do not allow impunity to thrive, then I can assure you that something will be done by the security agents to handle the lives of citizens in a more careful manner.

“I have discovered a legion of cases where policemen have wasted the lives of citizens; there is always a cover-up or even when there is recourse to judicial process, it takes so long that even the complainants will lose interest in the prosecution and in the end the perpetrator is discharged and acquitted for lack of diligent prosecution.

“We must insist that those who commit the crime of talking people’s lives extrajudicially are made to pay for it. We need a legal reform, where it will be stated that extrajudicial killing attracts the death penalty, in addition to civil remedy for victims,” Ubani submitted.

But Ozekhome disagreed with Ubani, noting that the bible had said, “Thou shall not kill.”

 “I don’t believe in the death penalty because a life wasted can never be replaced. Two wrongs cannot make a right. Also, taking life has been shown not to serve as a deterrent to offenders,” Ozekhome said.

However, like Ubani, the moderator, Nwokeukwu, believed that extrajudicial killing deserved to be punished by nothing less than the death penalty.

Confronting Ozekhome, Nwokeukwu said, “The issue of the bible says, ‘Thou shall not kill’, I don’t think it meant not killing criminals who commit heinous crimes. If you interpret ‘Thou shall not kill’ literally, the way you have done, it means you will not even kill mosquitoes.”

But Ozekhome held his ground.

 “By ‘Thou shall not kill’ I mean certain crimes that require the death penalty can also be punished by, for instance, life imprisonment. I am a human rights activist; I am Christian, I mean it and I stand by it.

“The death penalty has not stopped crimes. Kidnappers are being killed; armed robbers are being killed; has that deterred kidnapping and armed robbery?” he asked.

And replying him, Nwokeukwu said, “Do you know what society would have looked like if those people were not killed? ‘Thou shall not kill’ means thou shall not kill anybody worthy of existence; not a man who deliberately takes the life of another. Can you imagine a society of ours if a person like Oyenusi of old and characters like that are still living up till today? What do you think Nigeria will look like? If you remove people like that, it is minus one.”

Then Ozekhome asked, “But what has the killing of convicts led to?”

“It has led to reduction of heinous crimes,” Nwokeukwu said.

Coming in, Ubani reiterated his call for death penalty for extrajudicial killer policemen, once the crime has been proved beyond reasonable doubts.

He said, “I certainly believe that if somebody has killed another person and the case is proved beyond reasonable doubts, I don’t have any doubt that whoever kills must also be killed.”

Ubani lamented how it was always difficult for families of victims of extrajudicial killing to get redress.

He spoke of his client, who was accosted by a policeman on his way from work and shot in the course of an argument.

He said, “The policeman asked him where he was coming from and he said he was coming from work. It became an argument and the policeman shot my client but luckily for my client, he did not die. He was flown to India, eventually returned to Nigeria and we sued the Nigeria Police Force. For five years, the case was in court. We eventually got judgment against the Nigeria Police Force and then execution of the judgment became an issue.

“I have written to the Attorney General, I have not got a response; I even brought it in the Central Bank of Nigeria in the garnishee proceeding but the CBN has been hiding the bank account of the Nigeria Police Force. One thing is to get judgment, it is another to get remedy when your rights have been violated. This thing has to be done by way of law reforms.”

Ozekhome, Ubani and Ikhide unanimously called for training and reorientation of security agents to stem the tide of extrajudicial killings.

Ozekhome said, “To get out of this problem, we need training and retraining for our security agents. We have also talked about introducing scientific methodology in crime investigation; building data base.

“But we must also look at the welfare of the security agents. Where you find, for example, a policeman, who has been in the force for between 20 and 30 years, and he is still an ordinary sergeant and the salary is still not up to N50,000 and is living in a ramshackle barrack, when he is even lucky at all to get an accommodation, then that is certainly like a bomb waiting to explode. When you send a person like that to the street, he asks travellers for money, by indirectly asking them for their particulars. And a mere argument over N100 or N200, that already frustrated police officer gets angry and because he has the arms, he pulls the trigger. That is extrajudicial killing because it has not been sanctioned by a court of law.”

Ubani called on the judiciary to also look inwards.

He said, “I have had discussions with some of the men of the police Special Anti-Robbery Squad; and they said the reason they do some of what they do is that they don’t have confidence in our judicial system. According to them, they had had instances where hardened criminals had been arrested and taken to court and within a short time, they see those criminals back in society. And when they get them rearrested, they think the best thing to do is to eliminate them.

“I have found out also that most of their investigations and the evidences they assemble to prosecute most times fall short of expectation. And there is no way the court will convict an accused person without sufficient evidence that is proven beyond reasonable doubt. So, it is important for the security agencies to build capacity for criminal investigation.

“The judiciary must also have introspection. Are we aiding criminals to escape justice, making society to feel frustrated and think the best thing they can do is to resort to self-help? The danger of extrajudicial killing is that an innocent man can be a victim.”