What is impunity? Impunity means exemption or freedom from punishment, harm, or loss". In the international law of human rights, it refers to the failure to bring perpetrators of human rights violations to justice and, as such, itself constitutes a denial of the victims' right to justice and redress. Impunity is especially common in countries that lack a tradition of the rule of law, suffer from corruption or that have entrenched systems of patronage, or where the judiciary is weak or members of the security forces are protected by special jurisdictions or immunities.
This is a word used by a lot of people to express its disgust on the high handedness and oppressive actions of some government agencies and officials.
It is a normal occurrence for state agencies to act with impunity on normal defenseless citizens as they have so much powers to do so but recently there has been a shift of those who are being oppressed. These days the masses stay back and watch as rights of supposed Federal officials are violated. Some people even appear to be shocked when such news filters into the public space. Some examples are harassment and arrest of political party leaders with no form of warrant or physical violation of the law, storming the National assembly by police men and barricading the building plus throwing gas and preventing law makers from performing it constitutional duties, even interpreting the law as to who did what and taking actions without waiting for court judgement on cases.
While I believe that these acts are a wrong use of power by the police and security agencies, I also think that those in political office allowed this situation to degenerate to the level we find ourselves today.
I remember back in my school days we made this point to media houses that cared to listen and air our opinions, we were seen as crying foul and even labelled as trouble makers. Back then, when we would go out on peaceful rallies singing and carrying leaves to express our grievances on issues that affected us as students,the security forces will be unleashed on us and we will be gases, beaten and sometimes killed and our leaders arrested. After all the chaos the Police will justify its actions by claiming students were involved in destruction of school property or saying they came to maintain law and order while doing the exact opposite. Most times we are labelled thugs even as students of that institution. At that point we expected some people in high places to condemn this act by the police and look into such act of impunity by the security operatives in executing its duties. This you know never happened because at that point the action was not conflicting with their interest. This my account is same when people come out to protest in most states in Nigeria. You would think that you are going to make your voice heard by the powers that be, but will be faced with stiff combat ready Police officers as if they were going to confront armed robbers or insurgents.
This act by the security operatives is not a Nigerian problem alone but world wide, countries deal with these kind of issues. The difference between developed nations and nations like Nigeria is that the masses are not left to their faith when this injustice is done. People in high places do a lot to condemn such acts when it occurs and put in place mechanisms to prevent issues like that from happening.
Why I chose to talk of impunity when it affects the rich is because recently the security while trying to do its job effectively at the national assembly quarters this week made the same tactical mistake which it makes when dealing with a average Nigerian citizen. The Police comes down strong on individuals both guilty and innocent alike, makes assumption that people are guilty before moving to an area, poorly assesses the atmosphere before acting and ends up complicating issues when called into a dispute.
An average Nigerian will prefer not to involve the police in issues of dispute because both the innocent and the guilty are disciplined in the name of investigating a crime. In a personal experience, I stayed with some friends some time ago when an item went missing in the room. We did not know who did it but all knew who it could not be. When the police was called to investigate, everyone in the building was bundled in handcuffs and beaten in other to give a statement of their involvement in the crime. It seemed as if the more you were beaten, the more the possibility for you to confess to this crime. At the end of the day, the laptop was found by the owner in a friends place who does not even stay in the building and now he has to face neighbors who have been humiliated for a crime they never committed.
A lot of people have similar experiences or have friends who have witnessed this form of unprofessional and dehumanizing acts by the Nigerian police force.
The police is there to protect life and property and to enforce laws in an impartial manner irrespective of Religion, Political affiliations, social class and tribe.
I would not like to dwell so much on the recent occurrence at the National Assemble as there is enough blame to go round from top to bottom, but all that happened will not have occurred in the first place if the police did not show up combat ready. This means that the reason for coming to the building in the first place has been defeated. Both those they wanted to prevent from entering and those that they gave passage felt the effect of the gas in the Chambers. If that not counterproductive?
There are situations I would love to see happening in our security agencies. I would like to see a situation when the police receives a tip off on an incident, they show up in time to see things develop, assess the situation and calm it down with the least force possible. I want to see a force that are not partisan in its actions. What is good for person A is also good for person B. You can't swing into action when it has to do with people you don't know but look away when those you know are committing the same crime. I want to see a Nigerian police that will return my fifty naira note to me and insist that I must not break the law. These are little things that make the public loose confidence in the Police and make people look at you as the very criminals you claim to be fighting.
The Police chief in his attempt to explain his actions in the NNAS incident just created more questions that beg answers and even implicated the Nigerian Police without knowing it. They even put out a video on the force page on facebook in a bid to prove its innocence but still got implicated by the same video. If after four years a police officers does not know the speaker of the house of Assembly, such officers should be questioned and strict actions taken against them.
Like I said in the beginning an exemption or freedom from punishment, harm, or loss is impunity. If you allowed some people into the chambers and locked the gate on approach of the speaker of the house, you are acting with impunity. Even if you had a good reason, as long as others had passed and the gate was not locked on them, people will sense some foul play.
Finally, it is important for everybody to speak against an injustice irrespective of its effect on you at the moment. Today it is the National Assembly, yesterday it was students having peaceful protest, some time ago it was the Governor of a state. You need to speak up and condemn this forms of impunity in the actions of the security agents. It has to stop, if not you might be next.
What do you think of the Nigerian Police force and the show of power by this agency of Government?
This is a word used by a lot of people to express its disgust on the high handedness and oppressive actions of some government agencies and officials.
While I believe that these acts are a wrong use of power by the police and security agencies, I also think that those in political office allowed this situation to degenerate to the level we find ourselves today.
I remember back in my school days we made this point to media houses that cared to listen and air our opinions, we were seen as crying foul and even labelled as trouble makers. Back then, when we would go out on peaceful rallies singing and carrying leaves to express our grievances on issues that affected us as students,the security forces will be unleashed on us and we will be gases, beaten and sometimes killed and our leaders arrested. After all the chaos the Police will justify its actions by claiming students were involved in destruction of school property or saying they came to maintain law and order while doing the exact opposite. Most times we are labelled thugs even as students of that institution. At that point we expected some people in high places to condemn this act by the police and look into such act of impunity by the security operatives in executing its duties. This you know never happened because at that point the action was not conflicting with their interest. This my account is same when people come out to protest in most states in Nigeria. You would think that you are going to make your voice heard by the powers that be, but will be faced with stiff combat ready Police officers as if they were going to confront armed robbers or insurgents.
This act by the security operatives is not a Nigerian problem alone but world wide, countries deal with these kind of issues. The difference between developed nations and nations like Nigeria is that the masses are not left to their faith when this injustice is done. People in high places do a lot to condemn such acts when it occurs and put in place mechanisms to prevent issues like that from happening.
Why I chose to talk of impunity when it affects the rich is because recently the security while trying to do its job effectively at the national assembly quarters this week made the same tactical mistake which it makes when dealing with a average Nigerian citizen. The Police comes down strong on individuals both guilty and innocent alike, makes assumption that people are guilty before moving to an area, poorly assesses the atmosphere before acting and ends up complicating issues when called into a dispute.
An average Nigerian will prefer not to involve the police in issues of dispute because both the innocent and the guilty are disciplined in the name of investigating a crime. In a personal experience, I stayed with some friends some time ago when an item went missing in the room. We did not know who did it but all knew who it could not be. When the police was called to investigate, everyone in the building was bundled in handcuffs and beaten in other to give a statement of their involvement in the crime. It seemed as if the more you were beaten, the more the possibility for you to confess to this crime. At the end of the day, the laptop was found by the owner in a friends place who does not even stay in the building and now he has to face neighbors who have been humiliated for a crime they never committed.
A lot of people have similar experiences or have friends who have witnessed this form of unprofessional and dehumanizing acts by the Nigerian police force.
The police is there to protect life and property and to enforce laws in an impartial manner irrespective of Religion, Political affiliations, social class and tribe.
I would not like to dwell so much on the recent occurrence at the National Assemble as there is enough blame to go round from top to bottom, but all that happened will not have occurred in the first place if the police did not show up combat ready. This means that the reason for coming to the building in the first place has been defeated. Both those they wanted to prevent from entering and those that they gave passage felt the effect of the gas in the Chambers. If that not counterproductive?
There are situations I would love to see happening in our security agencies. I would like to see a situation when the police receives a tip off on an incident, they show up in time to see things develop, assess the situation and calm it down with the least force possible. I want to see a force that are not partisan in its actions. What is good for person A is also good for person B. You can't swing into action when it has to do with people you don't know but look away when those you know are committing the same crime. I want to see a Nigerian police that will return my fifty naira note to me and insist that I must not break the law. These are little things that make the public loose confidence in the Police and make people look at you as the very criminals you claim to be fighting.
The Police chief in his attempt to explain his actions in the NNAS incident just created more questions that beg answers and even implicated the Nigerian Police without knowing it. They even put out a video on the force page on facebook in a bid to prove its innocence but still got implicated by the same video. If after four years a police officers does not know the speaker of the house of Assembly, such officers should be questioned and strict actions taken against them.
Like I said in the beginning an exemption or freedom from punishment, harm, or loss is impunity. If you allowed some people into the chambers and locked the gate on approach of the speaker of the house, you are acting with impunity. Even if you had a good reason, as long as others had passed and the gate was not locked on them, people will sense some foul play.
Finally, it is important for everybody to speak against an injustice irrespective of its effect on you at the moment. Today it is the National Assembly, yesterday it was students having peaceful protest, some time ago it was the Governor of a state. You need to speak up and condemn this forms of impunity in the actions of the security agents. It has to stop, if not you might be next.
What do you think of the Nigerian Police force and the show of power by this agency of Government?
Nigeria has always covertly practices a form of elitist dictatorial feudalism.... the so called democratic federalism is merely a well crafted illusion to keep the facade that is the current world order.
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