The recent death of nine-year old Timilehin Ebun from police stray bullet has raised questions over the discipline of some members of the Nigeria Police in the use of firearms.
What is the value of a Nigerian life?
For members of the Ebun family, whose
nine-year old son, Timilehin, was killed by a policeman’s stray bullet
on Thursday, June 13, in Mile 12, Lagos, there are even more questions
than answers. And every reminder of the tragic incident is a depressing
and crushing jolt, heightened by gut wrenching agony that may take them a
long time to recover from.
“I have lived in the United States, the
United Kingdom, Norway and even Canada. The way policemen behave in
those countries is nothing compared to Nigeria. Here, a policeman cocks
his gun and is ready to fire even before listening to you,” said
Olusegun, father of the deceased, inconsolably.
The unfortunate incident happened when
the family was driving home to Ikorodu from the Murtala Muhammed
Airport, Ikeja, where they had gone to pick up their 17-year-old son
Jide who schools in Canada and had not been home for two years. When
they reached the Kosofe, Mile 12 area, one of the police stray bullets
pierced through the window of the vehicle they were in.
Continue reading after the cut...
Just before it occurred, Timilehin had
spoken about wanting to become a football star, while his father had
urged him to obtain his university degree in medicine before he pursued
his football dream.
In a flash, the dream was extinguished
and celebration of home-coming turned into grief. Timilehin was declared
dead at the hospital he was later rushed to. The police had stolen
their joy, Olusegun had told PUNCH Metro.
“Jide has been traumatised since the
incident because he had always been scared of coming to Nigeria because
of the security challenges. As if to prove him right, the night he
returned to the country, his younger brother was killed by policemen in
his presence,” he said.
“The policemen who allegedly did the
shooting are currently being detained and investigations are still
on-going. In due time, we will make known the outcome of the
investigations,” said Public Relations Officer, Lagos State Police
Command, Ngozi Braide, when Sunday PUNCH contacted her on the phone.
Last week, a delegation of senior police
officers, led by the Deputy Commissioner of Police in charge of the
State Criminal Investigation Department, Damilola Adegbuyi, paid a
condolence visit to the family. Also, a team of police detectives
attached to the Homicide Department of the State CID Yaba, interrogated
the team of suspected policemen and interviewed eyewitnesses at the
scene.
Nevertheless the commendable efforts of
the state police command in its bid to ensure the perpetrators are
brought to book, many Nigerians have questioned the training and
discipline of some policemen in the use of firearms. For years, the
Nigeria Police has also been widely criticised for extrajudicial
killings of innocent Nigerians.
“There must be proper discipline and
order in the police force. The man who has a gun should be more
disciplined than someone who doesn’t have one,” noted the Chairman,
Nigeria Bar Association, Ikeja Branch, Mr. Onyekachi Ubani, who said
that the fundamental right to life, which every Nigerian deserves, must
not be rubbished by the misuse of firearms by some members of the police
force. “A policeman is not supposed to misuse the gun in his care
because it was entrusted to him for the protection of lives and
property,” he noted.
According to the Principle 9 of the
United Nations Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms, “Law
enforcement officials shall not use firearms against persons except in
self-defence or defence of others against the imminent threat of death
or serious injury, to prevent the perpetration of a particularly serious
crime involving grave threat to life, to arrest a person presenting
such a danger and resisting their authority, or to prevent his or her
escape, and only when less extreme means are insufficient to achieve
these objectives. In any event, intentional lethal use of firearms may
only be made when strictly unavoidable in order to protect life.”
Although questions have been raised over
its shortcomings, the Nigeria Police Force Order 237, which provides
guidance on the use of firearms by the police in Nigeria, also supports
this. In one of its sections, it stated that “firearms must only be used
as a last resort”and “if there are no other means of effecting (the
suspect’s) arrest, and the circumstances are such that his subsequent
arrest is unlikely.”
In spite of these rules and regulations,
several cases of extrajudicial killings, by what Mr. Ubani described as
‘trigger-happy’ policemen, are still being recorded. This is the more
reason why he feared that if such incidents are not curtailed, Nigerians
would continue to lose confidence in the ability of the Police to
protect lives and property.
“It is an aberration because it’s not in
accordance with international law and does not portray the nation in a
good light. A time would come when people would start retaliating
against the Nigeria Police if they cannot get justice through an
effective police enquiry in matters such as this,” Mr. Ubani noted and
called for the investigations into Timilehin’s killing to be brought to a
logical conclusion. “The investigation must be done properly by an
impartial judicial panel and whoever is responsible must be brought to
justice,” he added.
For Mr. Tomori Gbolagade, a graphic
artist, it’s been a long road to justice. Gbolagade lost the use of his
right arm after he was shot by the police around Akowonjo area in
September 2011. The incident happened when he was asked to park his car
by a team of policemen for checking. While he was trying to park in
front of the other cars that had also been stopped by the same
policemen, he was shot at. “One of the bullets pierced through the
window of my car and hit my right arm,” he told Sunday PUNCH. The policemen immediately fled the scene when they realised he had been severely injured.
Luckily for Gbolagade though, the
incident happened near a police station. Some of the policemen present
there came to his rescue and rushed him to the hospital. Later, they
apologised on behalf of their absconded colleagues, claiming that it was
an “accidental discharge.” When they visited him at his hospital bed,
they brought N40,000, in instalments, to offset part of his medical
bills. That was where it ended.
After many months of treatment at the
General Hospital, Gbolagade’s situation did not really improve, so he
had to travel to India for surgery in November last year. “I can’t turn
the hand 180 degrees and my fingers are numb, no tendons. Imagine a
graphic artist without his right hand, striving to survive,” he said,
but hopes that the now faceless policemen would be brought to book and
that he would be able to raise the N8 million needed to pay for the
second surgery due in July in India to regain the use of his right hand.
Unlike Gbolagade, who at least still has
the hope of being able to use his right hand and getting his life back
to normalcy, Timilehin’s family cannot say the same. They don’t have
that kind of luxury, as their son was cut down at the dawn of his
promising life; gone too soon, forever out of their reach.
“To have one of your friends or family
members killed by the authorities causes terrible anguish, but never to
find out the truth of what actually happened to them causes a particular
agony for relatives of the victims,” said Lucy Freeman, Amnesty International’s deputy director for Africa, in its report released in February entitled: Nigeria: No justice for the dead.
The report urged the federal and state governments to investigate all
violent deaths that occurred through extrajudicial killings in the
country.
“I want you to understand that no
policeman would leave his house in the morning with the mindset to go
and kill. We are trained to protect lives and not to take them. What we
have is a case of murder, and as far as we are concerned, justice will
be done,” Braide told Sunday PUNCH.
- ARUKAINO UMUKORO/Punch
JUSTICE FOR Timilehin Ebun!
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