KNOW YOUR FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS.

KNOW YOUR FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS.
Freedom From Beating, Long Detention, Threats, Harassments Etc.

It is wrong, unlawful and unconstitutional for the Police to torture their suspects under any guise and for any reason whatsoever. This is not only so under Nigerian laws, but also under African and United Nations Charters on Human Rights. So, this is recognized worldwide.
Nigerian policemen are fond of torturing their suspects in order to force them to “confess”. Some of the torture methods used include the following:

i. Flogging & Beating – This is the most commonly used means of torturing a suspect, whereby the suspect is subjected to serious flogging with cane, cables, horsewhip, rod, planks, etc, or dealt physical blows and kicks.

ii. “Hanging” – It is the method by which a suspect is tied to the ceiling fans, or the ceiling fan hook and left there. Atimes, the ceiling fan is switched on in order to rotate and thereby make the suspect dizzy. Atimes too, the suspect is tied hands back and suspended with a pole between two drums.

iii. Using Wooden Pallets Stuffed With Nails – Here, the Police deliberately place wooden pallets with protruding nails on the floor of a dark and enclosed cell. They then engage in flogging the suspect so that in the process of the struggle, the suspect steps on the nails.

iv. Using Electrical Shock – This is a method where the suspect is flogged with a live and exposed cable thereby triggering electric shocks therefrom. The suspect may also have exposed electric wires strapped around him which are then connected to electric sockets intermittently, generating electric shocks on the suspect.

v. Shooting On The Leg – This is common with officers of the various Special Anti-Robbery Squads (SARS). Here the suspect is deliberately shot on the leg or ankle, to extort confessional statements from him. It is common in the court rooms to see suspected armed robbers with bullet wounds on their legs. Investigations revealed that most of those bullet wounds were inflicted in the course of interrogation, to extract confessional statements from the suspects. But the Police would rather claim that the bullet wounds were sustained during exchange of gunfire before the suspects were arrested. Under the law, such manner of interrogation is unlawful.

vi. Inserting Sharp Objects Into The Private Part – Some officers also engage in inserting sharp objects like broomstick, nails etc, into the private part of the suspect to make him confess. The pains from this can be better imagined.

vii. Detention With Hardened/Condemned Criminals – Another means of torture is where the officer deliberately detains a suspect in the same cell with hardened or condemned criminals, who then subject the suspect to serious beating, torture and agonies, on the instructions or instigation by the police officer. This is torture by proxy..

Please note that torture does not have to be physical alone. It could be emotional or psychological. There was a particular method used by men of SARS then, viz: a suspected armed robber A is deliberately brought into the room where Suspect B is to be interrogated. Suspect A is simply asked if he is truly an armed robber or not, and if he says no, he is shot on the spot. Then Suspect B is also asked if he is an armed robber… you can bet that Suspect B will confess to be an armed robber even if he is not, having seen the fate that just befell Suspect A who said no.
Another form of mental and emotional torture is an unduly long detention where the suspect is denied access to his family member, solicitor or doctor, and the officers now threaten not to release him until he confesses.

Torture could also be in form of threat, harassment and intimidation of the suspect. It is a form of mental and emotional torture for a police officer to threaten an accused person with a jail term if he does not dance to his tunes. Some policemen threaten to arrest and/or detain the wife or children or family of the suspect if he does not confess.
All these methods of torture are condemned by the law as wrongful. Even if caught right in the commission of the crime, a suspect is still presumed innocent until the contrary is proved. That is what the law says. So, to start torturing the suspect because you want him to confess or mention the names of his accomplices in the crime is illegal and the law will not allow it.
I must not end this section without informing you that even the Police Act as quoted above, which is the law regulating the conduct of policemen, forbids unnecessary violence against a suspect. This law makes it an offence against discipline for any policeman to engage in any act of unnecessary violence against a citizen in his custody or any person with whom he comes into contact. This law, we may safely conclude, forbids torture, beating and other acts of violence generally perpetrated by many policemen in Nigeria. Violation of this law attracts sanctions for the offending policeman.