The list of unresolved high-profile murders is long. Some blame ineffective use of forensic technology for the problem, but the Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Mr Mohammed Abubakar, says it is due to lack of information from the public. He also blames detectives for doing poor jobs. Is the IG’s claim tenable? How can the public trust the police with information? Does Nigeria need a statute similar to the United States’Whistleblower Protection Act to protect information givers? JOSEPH JIBUEZE writes.
Why have the police been unable to resolve a single high-profile murder in Nigeria and bring the perpetrators to book? This is a question that has remained on the lips of many for years. Experts said the police need to be well-equipped to solve violent crimes through scientific means.
But the Inspector-General of Police (IGP) Mr Mohammed Abubakar, last Wednesday attributed the poor performance of his men to lack of information from the public. He also blamed detectives for not conducting in-depth investigations.
Abubakar spoke at a conference for heads of Criminal Investigation Departments (CIDs) of police formations in Abuja.
He said: “People will see somebody committing robbery, somebody planting bombs and will not report to the security agencies. In Nigeria, people withhold information to themselves.’’
Abubakar added that a bad investigator would produce bad report, urging the officers to be professional, adopt modern techniques of investigation, shun corruption and respect suspects’ rights.
“I want you to take the issue of corruption seriously. As police officers, we cannot be the breakers of the laws; we must be the people to respect the law,’’ he said.
Deputy Inspector-General (DIG) of Police (Investigation) Peter Gana added that continuous learning, attitudinal change, commitment and networking could assist in police officers handling investigation.
Some unresolved murders
There are several unresolved high-profile murders in Nigeria. From 1985 to date, successive governments in Nigeria with its police and other security agencies have failed to bring to book killers of murder victims.
For instance, on October 19, 1986, Nigerians were greeted with the shock of Dele Giwa’s letter bomb attack. Till date, the question remains, Who killed Dele Giwa?.
On December 23, 2001, the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Chief Bola Ige (SAN), was shot dead at his home in Ibadan, Oyo State.
In 1990, Brig-Gen. Lasun Odeleke, husband of famous evangelist Bishop Bola Odeleke died in a road accident in Abuja. According to official report, a hit-and-run driver knocked him down, but the family was not allowed to carry out a post mortem to ascertain the cause of his death.
Rear Admiral Babatunde Elegbede, a retired Naval Officer, was felled by assassins’ bullet right in the presence of his wife. Since 1994, when he was killed, his killers have not been found.
A senatorial candidate of the defunct All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) in Imo State, Uche Orji, was killed in the wake of the 2003 elections, yet nobody has been arrested for the crime.
Killers of the Nigerian Bar Association Chairman in Anambra State, Barnabas Igwe and his wife, Amaka in December 2005 are still unknown.
Chief Harry Marshal, a former chieftain of People’s Democratic Party and later coordinator of ANPP presidential campaign in Southsouth was murdered in his Abuja home in 2003. On July 27, 2006 Funsho Williams’ body was found at his home. He had been tied up stabbed and strangled. Their killers are yet to be found.
Tragedy struck in Amorji Nike, near the densely populated Abakpa Nike, Enugu, on March 2 this year when the Kwara State Commissioner of Police, Mr. Chinwike Asadu was shot dead by unknown gunmen. The Police Commissioner, who reportedly visited his home, was driving into his private residence when the assailants who may have laid an ambush around his home attacked him. His aides about 100 metres away from his house.
Rocked by militants and politically inspired aggression nationwide, Nigeria has become one of the worst nations in the world for deadly, unpunished violence.
Even journalists are not spared. Several of them have been murdered and their killers still unknown. For instance, on April, 24, 2010, The Nation’s Judicial Correspondent Edo Sule Ugbagwu was murdered by unknown gunmen in his Lagos home.
The Committee to Protect Journalists, a group which defends journalists worldwide, found in its newly updated Impunity Index that there is a steady rise in anti-press violence in recent years.
Nigeria is said to have the second worst impunity rating in Africa, behind only Somalia.
Why there are unresolved murder cases
What could be responsible for the unresolved murders? Analysts say sometimes the police may know who the perpetrators or sponsors of a crime are, but may have been compromised politically or through financial inducement.
Again, the police are yet to fully master and apply forensic science in crime investigation.
“Investigations into these killings are usually carried out with sloppiness, and no real culprits are caught,” said Ayode Longe, a Senior Officer with the Media Rights Agenda, a press freedom group in Nigeria.
“That has emboldened others to assault journalists, believing nothing would be done to them,” Longe said.
A senior police officer, Yomi Onashile, noted that very few criminal investigation sections take fingerprints of arrested persons anymore, with the result that most crimes are not detected.
“In my opinion, the most reliable means of identification of a suspect or individuals is through the evidence of fingerprints. The ability to detect a crime, to large extent, indirectly prevents the commission of the crime.
“People are still being assassinated or murdered because of our inability to detect those behind the ones that have already occurred. Nobody wants to go into a crime that could easily be detected,” Onashile said.
Observers say if the fingerprints, ballistic and biology (DNA profiling) sections of the police Forensic Laboratory could be developed to world-class standard, cases of violent crimes will be reduced because perpetrators of the crime would easily be identified and arrested.
Executive Secretary, Lagos Security Trust Fund Mr. Fola Authur-Worrey attributed the failure to solve high-profile murder cases to police reliance on confessional statements and eye-witness accounts in place of hard evidence that could be obtained through modern scientific methods.
He said the police are faced with dearth of modern equipment, skills and capability to solve high profile murder cases.
There is only one forensic laboratory in the whole country and it is poorly equipped, he said, adding that finger printing, a basic but highly important means of investigation is no longer in use in Nigeria.
The country is alleged to have only one ballistician which accounts for why the police cannot detect gunshot-related crime and that there is no data base for criminals in Nigeria.
Why the public withhold
information
Why are people with information that could lead to arrest of criminals afraid to volunteer it to the police?
Analysts said the police have not done much to inspire the public’s confidence in the force. Worryingly, there is less confidentiality, and anonymity is always not always guaranteed.
Besides, there is also no clear-cut means of anonymously passing information to the police. While the Rapid Response Squad, an arm of the Lagos State Police Command, can be reached through 767 and 112, most other commands in other states cannot be so easily reached, even as public enlightenment remains low.
Besides, there is always the fear by people with information of being arrested and asked to explain how they learned of what they know. The informant may even be accused of committing the crime. The police must do more to correct such impression and change such mentality, analysts said.
The police have placed bounties on the heads of criminals and those declared wanted, but there have not been much widely reported cases of people claiming the monetary rewards after helping the police solve a crime.
Before his appointment as Police Service Commission Chairman, a former Inspector-General of Police, Mr Mike Okiro, said Nigerians have lost confidence in the Police. He spoke in the wake of the bombing of the Force Headquarters and several other police stations across the country, which he said proved that men of the Force were incapable of policing themselves.
Okiro had been quoted as saying: “There is a saying that you cannot give what you don’t have. If you cannot protect yourself, who then do you protect? If you cannot protect your offices, who are you going to protect? People have lost confidence (in the Police) and MD Abubakar has a lot to do.”
Law to protect information givers needed?
Nigeria’s Whisteblower Bill 2011, which has reportedly passed second reading, is said to have been enlarged to accommodate reports on other acts of criminality, especially under its Part I Section 1(f).
In the United States, whistleblowers (persons who expose misconduct, alleged dishonest or illegal activity occurring in an organisation), who work for the government and report agency misconduct are generally protected by Whistleblower Protection Act of 1989.
However, legal protections vary according to the subject matter of the whistleblowing, and sometimes the state in which the case arises.
External whistleblowers, however, report misconduct to outside persons or entities. In these cases, depending on the information’s severity and nature, whistleblowers may report the misconduct to lawyers, the media, law enforcement or watchdog agencies, or other local, state, or federal agencies. In some cases, external whistleblowing is encouraged by offering monetary reward.
Whistleblowers frequently face reprisal, sometimes at the hands of the organisation or group which they have accused, sometimes from related organisations, and sometimes under law.
Are such laws to protect information givers needed in Nigeria? Lawyers said while information from the public may help the police solve crimes, the force’s ultimate responsibility is to investigate crimes and solve them.
Enacting such laws, they said, may not change the public’s disposition towards the police because there are several other good laws that have not been well-enforced.
When the public’s confidence in the police is restored, and they are guaranteed of their anonymity, then people with such information can pass them on.
Two senior advocates of Nigeria (SAN), Malam Yusuf Ali and Dr Joseph Nwobike disagreed on whether such law is needed, while a Lagos lawyer Emeka Nwadioke believes until the police are able to regain the public’s full confidence, things may remain the same.
Ali said: “Apart from laws to protect informers, the standard police practice all over the world is to pay informers. I learnt the practice stopped years ago in Nigeria. No amount of cadets can replace human informants in security matters.
“So, we must not only have strong laws to protect informants, we must also set money aside to pay them if they want to be paid for their information!”
For Nwobike, such a law may be of no significance. “I agree to an extent that one of the challenges facing result-oriented investigative activities by the police and other security agencies is the lack of evidence arising from the public.
“It is also true that Nigerians do not come forward to volunteer eye-witness accounts of what they may have observed at crime scenes. This, no doubt, constraints arrest and eventual prosecution of criminals across the country.
“That said, it is also true that the police and other security agencies hardly investigate crimes these days. I am not too sure whether they are properly trained in the investigation of crimes.
“I believe that when the security personnel acquire the necessary investigative skills, they would be in a position to encourage Nigerians to volunteer information that may be of great assistant to them.
“Although there are no laws specifically protecting persons who provide information to the police, the existence of such specific law may be of no significance if the current disposition of the security agencies continues.”
Nwadioke said the ‘victims’ of crimes must not be blamed, adding that crude methods cannot be used to solve crimes effectively.
“I will consider the comments of the IGP as ‘obiter,’ to the extent that the theme of the conference was ‘Keeping up with new trends in investigation and prosecution of cases.’
“But I commend the police chief for adverting his mind to the pressing need for capacity building and attitudinal change within the investigating teams. That is the crux of the matter. It is delusory to think that we can use techniques rooted in antiquity to combat criminals who are getting more sophisticated by the day.
“The IGP’s claim is tenable to the extent that, indeed, most Nigerians are reluctant to give information to security agencies, especially the police. I suspect they may even be more willing to give such information to the army or SSS than the police. And that speaks volumes, without saying more.
“It is a fact that policing in Nigeria has been gravely abused by those bestowed with that public trust. All manner of persons, including land grabbers procure the police to pursue their unwholesome ends.
“It was AIG Zone 6 Command Jonathan Johnson, who reportedly said: ‘The police officers are the ones selling ammunition to criminals, aiding and abetting, turning cases upside down, conniving with suspects, and engaging in conspiracy.’
“It is an open-secret that several police operatives were arrested for allegedly leaking operational information to the Ombatse cult, leading to the massacre of over 50 of their colleagues in Alakyo, Nassarawa State. If gold rusts, what will iron do? If police operatives cannot protect their own, need we say more?
“These few instances of abuse cannot give confidence to the average citizen in diligently discharging his civic duty of providing information to the police. We must therefore confront the issues frontally, otherwise we may delude the unwary by labeling the victim as the culprit! Instructively, this is a game many will tell you the police are adept at playing.
“It seems to me that the police should focus more on a preventive than curative policing model through intensive intelligence gathering. That way, crimes are nipped in the bud, leading to fewer crimes and less need for post-mortem information from the public. The public may also be more willing to give information at the intelligence gathering stage than otherwise, at all times mindful of their personal safety.
“Though Whistleblower laws are traditionally targeted at combating fraud and corruption by allowing government employees to report such malfeasance without any hardships to themselves, it seems that Nigeria’s Whisteblower Bill 2011 (which has now passed second reading) has been enlarged to accommodate reports on other acts of criminality, especially under Part I Section 1(f).
“It also affords better safeguards to the whisteblower, unlike the Freedom of Information Act 2011. However, until the police are able to regain the full confidence of the public, a change in the status quo is at best a mirage.”
