18th September, 2014
Nnamdi Felix/Abuja
Global watchdog, Amnesty International, Thursday in Abuja released a report detailing incidences of torture and other ill treatment in Nigeria, especially those perpetrated by the Nigerian Police and other security agencies, including the Nigerian Army.
The report titled “Welcome to hell fire” exposed torture chambers in Nigeria Police stations across Nigeria and disclosed that Nigeria Police and Army routinely torture women, men, and children, some as young as 12, using a wide range of methods including beatings, shootings and rape.
The report details how people are often detained in large dragnet operations and tortured as punishment, to extort money or to extract confessional statements as shortcut to solving cases.
It also notes that torture is not even a criminal offence in Nigeria and calls on Nigerian parliament and government to immediately take the long overdue steps and pass a law criminalizing torture in the country.
Amnesty International’s Research and Advocacy Director, Mr. Netsanet Belay observed that the pervasive nature of torture in Nigeria goes beyond the appalling torture and killing of suspected Boko Haram suspects and pointed out that across the country, the scope and severity of torture inflicted on Nigeria’s women, men and children by the authorities that are supposed to protect them is shocking even to the most hardened human rights observer.
The report was compiled from hundreds of testimonies and evidence gathered over a period of ten years and exposes the institutionalized use of police torture chambers and routine abuses by the military in a country that prohibits torture in its constitution but has yet to pass a legislation outlawing the violation.
It also notes that the military is committing similar human rights violations as the police, detaining thousands as they search for Boko Haram members.
The report also accused Nigeria government of being two faced on torture, noting that although Nigeria prohibits torture and other ill treatment in the Constitution and had signed numerous international human rights protocols banning the violations, Nigeria authorities continue to turn a blind eye to torture and have not even made the violation a criminal offence.
It estimates that there are 5000 people detained since 2009 when military operations started in the Northeastern part of the country against the Boko Haram group.