CHINUA ACHEBE: Goodbye, The Iroko

For those of us who knew Chinua Achebe or have been touched by his great works, the news of his death came as a rude shock, even a tragedy. This must be why many refused to accept the story when it first broke this morning. A condolence register is hereby established for all, who cannot otherwise, to express their grief and pay condolences to his lovely wife, Professor Christie Achebe, his children and the rest of his family.

Chinua Achebe was for me a mentor and a source of inspiration even as a kid. I remember the griping experience the story of Okonkwo and Ikemefuna (the child that called him father) was for me as a 12-year old. It was therefore a profound experience for me when about in 2001, Professor Achebe invited me to become his lawyer and to establish the Achebe Foundation in the State of New York. That became the beginning of what was to be many years of richly rewarding personal and professional encounters with Achebe, the man I simply called “The Iroko”, and some members of his family, particularly his kind wife. I regretted that my many recent activities and movements had prevented me from visiting him since the past two years.

He was always kind, thoughtful, principled, deliberate and inspirational. As a man of principle he taught us not to accept awards from corrupt governments and leaders who did not care about the common man. His sense of humor had no parallel. His humanity had no bounds. He was a great man, yet humble and caring for others who are less privileged. I am filled with grief at the news of his passing, but I shall tamper that feeling with the fact that I can also celebrate the great life of a man who gave the world so much but asked for no personal gain in return.

To attest to Achebe’s universality and greatness, everyone of my friends that I spoke to today told of how his or her life was transformed in some way by the works of Achebe. Each person remembered where he or she was when he or she first read Things Fall Apart. Achebe was a personification of the history of his race and humanity as a whole. Looking back at the events of the past six months, it is clear that Achebe knew he was going to say goodbye to us so soon. Therefore, he gave us something of a parting gift in his profoundly provocative and challenging masterpiece, “There Was a Country.” No other writer is readily known to have departed this world so peacefully barely few months of publishing such work. So, in his departure, he showed that style and elegance that are uniquely Achebe’s.

Fare thee well, the great Iroko. We shall never forget you, and thank you for all you did for us.

Emeka Ugwuonye, Esquire

PRESIDENTIAL PARDONS AND THE FAILURE TO NIGERIA'S JUSTICE SYSTEM

Presidential Pardons and the failure to Nigeria’s Justice System

I promised to make this article no longer than one thousand words. I will try to play the philosopher and soothsayer in few words. Otherwise, this is an important topic, as it has engaged my mind since the past two years, when I came face-to-face with the worst criminal justice system in the world. I mean the Nigerian criminal justice system.

To profile myself chronologically within this system, I should delineate the three stages in which I have operated within it. The first stage was between the ages of 18 and 23. In this stage, I was a law student at the University of Benin. We studied law under military rule. Decrees and edits ruled the day. There was no constitutional law, as it should be known and taught at law schools. Even our jurisprudence classes then were tilted heavily toward the law of brute force. Hans Kelsen’s Pure Theory of Law, which was noted for its rejection of all moral contents, dominated the keen and impressionable minds of the youthful students of law. Also, the doctrine of necessity and some crude principles of effectiveness prevailed. Necessity, for those who may not know, means some omnibus justification for failure to follow the law of the people. Without a doubt, the doctrine of necessity, particularly the Nigerian brand of it, is a lazy lawyer’s escape from a duty to justify the use of law on moral and value-based grounds. Similarly, the principles of effectiveness was worse, as something akin to no more than a thief telling his victim that he had effectively stolen from him and there was nothing he could about it.

Nigeria’s dictators used these theories to keep themselves in power without losing sleep. Indeed, as the military rulers were really not smart enough to directly advance these theories, they relied on the readily available pseudo-intellectuals in our universities and professional class to peddle such theories. I left University of Benin and the Nigerian Law School thinking that Hans Kelsen must be the most important legal scholar of all times.

The second stage in my encounter with the Nigerian legal system was as a prisoner and suspect and an accused person within the Nigerian legal system. Exactly on December 16, 2010, the Nigerian Ambassador Ade Adefuye, in a well-orchestrated plot to conceal the fact that he embezzled millions of dollars in government money in Washington DC, in which I was one of the few capable of exposing him, wrote an email to an equally corrupt official, Mrs. Farida Waziri. She was then the head of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), who was eventually removed for her serial involvement in corruption. The two plotted to have me arrested and assassinated in Nigeria. They set me up through the SSS to be abducted at the Nigerian airport. That was the beginning of the drama and absurdities that saw me detained and maltreated for five months. During that period, I observed the Nigerian criminal justice system from yet a different angle. This perspective of the law was just as profound as anything else. It changed me both as a lawyer and as a person. That was when I discovered the need to change this country for good, whatever the cost. I became convinced that Nigeria had since been taken over by very dangerous people at the top. I could see precisely what they plan to do – to destroy this country by looting it bare, and then plunge the impoverished masses into war and massive bloodshed, while they would run away overseas with their families to enjoy the money they have stolen. And when the masses are done with killing themselves, the same people would return to continue ruling whoever survived the bloodshed from where they stopped. The strategy for this system of oppression is rooted in an abusive criminal justice system, whereby they use arbitrary arrests and detentions and perverted and pretentious prosecutions to eliminate opponents, constantly counting on a gullible and ironically self-persecuting mass of the population to succeed in harming the masses further.

Then the third stage in my encounter with the Nigerian criminal justice system is the present stage, where, instead of running as they had expected, I decided to make my stand, fighting not just for myself, but for the masses of this country that have been so terribly abused and endangered.

Of course, my preparation would not be complete without mentioning the years I have spent in America studying and practicing law. It was an import counter-experience to my legal training in Nigeria. For instance, while at Harvard Law School, I realized that Hans Kelsen had applied to teach at Harvard, but was rejected particularly because Harvard did not find his dictatorship-friendly theory of law appealing enough. It was for me an epiphany – that this almighty Kelsen was rejected at Harvard. Systematically, I began to reject and challenge many of the backward notions and ideas Nigeria imparted on me. I began to question many things. I question a system where the people in power could fail so glaringly to care for the people they are supposed to be leading. I question the Oga system that has nearly completely damaged my countrymen and countrywomen, creating an atmosphere where officials refuse to take responsibility for their actions, but rather blame their failures on some Oga at the top. Why are our schools in such shambles? How could our leaders abandon the children of this country in the worst imaginable school system in the world, while they educate their own children overseas? How could they abandon our hospitals to the level of total collapse while they rush to treat themselves and their families in foreign hospitals even for headache and indigestion? How do these Nigerian leaders go to bed and be able to sleep at night, when they know that millions of heir people have no food, no electricity, no clean water and live in squalid and mosquito-infested place?

With the politics of failure and the dysfunctional criminal justice system that midwives that failure, we have faced several abnormalities and outcomes that confound even the most adept manipulator of the system. What we witnessed in the recent pardons granted by the President of Nigeria was an incredible self-destructing maneuver by the President and his advisers. They have dribbled the ball into their own goalpost. The Pardons are a clear admission that the EFCC system is finished and has fully served its usefulness to the decadent machinery that propelled it. About five years ago, the EFCC orchestrated the most elaborate scheme that spanned across continents to get Governor Diepreye Alamieyeseigha to jail. Billions of Naira was spent to jail the man. Helicopter gunships and all manner of military equipment were deployed just to arrest him, and that is without mentioning the shenanigans that led to the first ever attempt to outsource Nigeria’s criminal trial to England. To now hear that the President of Nigeria pardoned the man makes a mockery of everything, while at the same time affirming what we knew for some time now, that most of the system of Nigeria justice is a sham.

As I write this, 48 Nigerian youths, some as young as 20, are on death row in Malaysia. One would expect a clemency-minded President and his advisers to dispatch a diplomatic offensive to get Malaysia to commute those sentences. But no! It is rather the case of Alamieyeseigha, a man who has actually been enjoying life as the best friend and Godfather of the President that would take up the generous dispositions of the President on clemency and pardon.

THE CONTROVERSY OVER PRESIDENT JONATHAN'S GRANT OF PARDON

Many members of my group, The Due Process Advocates (DPA) have beseeched me with requests that I explain the meaning and implications of the recent grant of state pardons, which President Jonathan extended to a number of people who were convicted of various crimes (and non-crimes) in Nigeria, and who have all served their terms. I have also noted the disputations that have trailed that act. In one occasion, the President himself came out to say that he had no apologies, which was a rather premature reaction from him in view of the fact that the Americans are not taking it lightly. In another occasion, the President’s media chief described Nigerians as people akin to sophisticated illiterates over the matter. Many have striven to distinguish between Clemency and State Pardon, from a conceptual standpoint.

Clemency is the reduction of terms of punishment, but it does not take away the status of an ex-convict. A person who is serving a jail term could receive clemency from several persons - the President, the Governor, the Chief Judge of a State or the Chief Justice of the Federation. In a federal structure of government, there are at least two systems of government – central and the state governments. An executive heads each level of government. There are also state offenses and federal offences, as well as state courts and federal courts. The offense a person is convicted of will determine who could grant him clemency. State offences would be eligible for state grant as compared to federal grant. (I am just making this simple enough for an average person.)

Clemency only reduces the jail term or the punishment. Example: A ten-year jail term could be reduced to two years or for time served, causing the prisoner to be released. A death sentence could be reduced to life or a number of years or for time already served. For instance, a person on death row for murder could be reduced to time already spent on death row, causing him to go home immediately.

Unlike clemency, State Pardon is greater than clemency and can only be granted by the President (and probably also the Governor). In Nigeria, it would seem that state pardon takes away not only the sentence but also the finding of guilt and the beneficiary is no longer an ex-convict. It may also eliminate the criminal record altogether and cure the person's status, restoring him to where he was prior to conviction. State Pardon can be granted even after the person has finished serving his term of imprisonment, and even posthumously. But Clemency can only be done before the person has finished serving his sentence. It is important to remember that Pardon is a broader form of clemency, but clemency is not necessarily pardon.

It is also important to note that these things are governed by the laws of each country, though there are some general patterns to expect among countries. Examining the American practice on the matter, the following comment or remark from http://www.clearupmyrecord.com/pardon-vs-celemency.php, is of value:

“A pardon is meant to indicate forgiveness of a particular crime, either because a person was wrongfully convicted or the punishment was not appropriate for the crime committed. A commutation is a merciful act offered when it is determined that the penalty given was too harsh. A common use of commutation is to reduce a death penalty verdict to life in prison. A reprieve may be given when more information is needed before it can be determined that it is appropriate for a person to serve a particular sentence. This is also often used in death penalty situations.”

The same source goes on to state as follows:

“It's important to note that in all cases of clemency, pardon or otherwise, the person's conviction is not overturned or removed from the public record. In fact, some people feel that accepting a pardon is tantamount to an admission of guilt. Those seeking to remove a criminal record will need to pursue expungement or having their record sealed. When a conviction is expunged, it is as if it never happened. There is no need for any kind of clemency because the crime is deleted from the record. This is obviously the ideal situation, and it happens more commonly than one might think. For many first offenses, even felonies, expungement is a real option.”

The British practice, which is expected to be closer to Nigeria’s, is not much different. In the British understanding of pardon, “to pardon means to forgive a person of his offence. The term 'pardon' has been defined as an act of grace, proceeding from the power entrusted with the execution of the law, which exempts the individual on whom it is bestowed upon, from the punishment the law inflicts for a crime he has committed. It affects both the punishment prescribed for the offence and the guilt of the offender.” (Read more: POWER TO PARDON: AN ANALYSIS | Law Teacher http://www.lawteacher.net/administrative-law/essays/power-to-pardon-an-analysis-law-essays.php#ixzz2NpMKSsB6.

The big question however is: what are the considerations and processes that should govern the grant of state pardons? The underlying principle or philosophy for pardon is that “every civilized country recognizes and has, therefore provided for the pardoning power to be exercised as an act of grace and humanity in proper cases, without such a power of clemency to be exercised by some department or functionary of government, a country would be most imperfect and deficient in its political morality and in that attribute of deity whose judgments are always tampered with mercy.” [Ditto]

Can the President just grant state pardons as he pleased? The answer is no. “The pardoning power is founded on consideration of public good and is to be exercised on the ground of public welfare, which is the legitimate object of all punishments, and must demonstrate that public welfare will be as well promoted by a suspension as by an execution of the sentences.” (See the same sources as above). The question being asked indirectly by the people is what public good informed the pardons recently granted by President Jonathan? Indeed, it appears that what happened could be likened to “granting of pardon by trick”. It appears that the President wanted to grant pardon to one particular friend of his. But to hide that fact, he added the names of some other people on the list of the pardoned. But that was not smart enough, really. The handwriting is clear on the wall. Expectantly the world took note of this trick.

To avoid the appearance of arbitrariness and favoritism, and to ensure that the public good remains the guiding principle for pardon grants, many countries have processes in place for selecting what cases deserve pardon. In many countries, there is a special board set up to entertain cases of clemency and state pardons. It goes by various clemency board, etc. That body actually examines the merits of each case and ensures that public interest is reflected. In the Nigerian scenario, the situation is not only different, but also there seems to be no plan and no structured process in place. What they have is the approval of the members of council of state. But this is just a political body that has no real role or opportunity in scrutinizing the cases that are involved. It is a rubber stamp comprised mostly of ex-leaders and top politicians whose approval does not in itself constitute public good.

State Pardon, as has been seen in the recent cases, is one area where Nigeria truly needs to get its acts together. The criminal justice system in this country is appalling. There will be need indeed for state pardons. But that should be directed at curing defects in the system for the benefit of the common man, and not for the President’s friends. I personally believe that the conviction of Diepreye Solomon Peter Alamieyeseigha was obtained by a wrong and dangerous procedure. He should have been allowed to return to court to fight it out. For Jonathan to throw caution to the winds and place his much dwindled international goodwill at risk over this matter baffles me.

MY OGA AT THE TOP: A True Nigeria Nightmare: How To Help Obafaiye Shem

The story of Mr. Obafaiye Shame, and his infamous interview with Channel TV is a Nigerian thriller and nightmare combined. It is a uniquely Nigerian story. It thrills, it rivets, it shocks and it entertains all at once. It marks a new awareness of the power of the media as an instrument of democracy - true people's power to check power. The

ordinary people who were never allowed to be aware of the processes through which our public officials are hired and empowered are now able to go back in time and re-interview an official of government and score him in ways that could lead to the official losing the job he has once held. 

But there ought to be more about this story. It has to do with the potential personal tragedy that Mr. Obafaiye Shem faces at this moment. A few days ago, he was a shinning star for the Nigerian Civil Defence Corps. Today, he has become the laughing stock of all times. But we must not leave things at that. If we stop here and do nothing more, Mr. Shem could be destroyed permanently. Indeed, I learned that he has been suspended from his post, which could be an effort by those he referred to as the Oga at the top to cover up and prevent the public from knowing who they really are. I understand also that his wife and children and family members are overwhelmed by shame and shock as a result of what is happening to him.

Evidently, for good or for worse, Obafaiye Shem, has engaged the attention of the Nigerian people in ways that individuals don't normally do. His story should not end in the pains and ostracism he now suffers as an outcast and a butt of all jokes. We must use him and his experience to provide a continuing narrative about the Nigerian predicament. In so doing, we will bring out the good in the man, which I believe exists notwithstanding his miserable interview performance. 

I am therefore seeking to reach out to Obafaiye Shem. I want to play a role in introducing him to the Nigerian youth from a different angle. Since his Oga at the top has rejected him the moment he got into trouble, I shall befriend him now and am sure that the Nigerian youth will be open-minded enough to get to know him better. This personal tragedy must be turned into some positive outcome for the people and for Shem.

Anyone with information on how I could contact Mr. Obafaiye Shem should please let me know.

"It was predictable that Mr. Obafaiye Shem's Oga at the top would fire him. But there is some good news to it. I am prepared to hire him in the Nigerian group that I am establishing. Ms. Shem's background could be adapted to a great use for our organization. The fact is that he already has an instant name recognition. He would be a great communicator to Nigerians. I can see a number of positions he would fit in well. With the right training, he could be my best staff. 

"I really think that Mr. Shem's blunders on the TV could yet help recreate the man. I would love to have the opportunity to reinvent him. I see in him a star despite his terrible moment".

____________________________

Ephraim Emeka Ugwuonye, Esquire

ECULAW GROUP

NIGERIAN SOCIETY - TOO DANGEROUS AND TOO UNSAFE : Some Recommendations.

Too dangerous and too unsafe would be appropriate in describing the Nigerian streets, towns and cities. Ironically, a major source of this danger and lack of safety is the Nigerian Police. Poorly trained, poorly equipped, poorly motivated and totally lacking in discipline, our police force has turned into a menace for the society. Many who had any illusions about the deplorable state of the Nigerian Police were to disabuse their minds after they viewed a documentary on the abysmal and subhuman conditions of a Nigerian Police College. And yet what they saw in that video was only a tiny bit of the huge decay that has since engulfed the Nigerian Police as an institution.

These massive rot and failings are shrouded in the overt and crude display of Nigerian policing. This display takes the form of the bizarre and meaningless names the various police units call themselves. Operation Rapid Response (ORR), Operation Fire for Fire (OFF), Special Armed Robbery Squad (SARS) and such other drama are the names they call themselves. You see them boldly and menacingly written on their vehicles. In gas stations, on the highway, in the market places, next to women selling fruits and vegetables, in the street corners and where else have you, you see the Nigerian policemen wielding their guns and throwing their weights around in the most crude and intimidation manner possible. But beyond these outward manifestation, you have mostly nothing more than uniformed men with little skills in policing work and with little ability to maintain law and order or keep the society safe.

Increasingly, these weaknesses reached a level where the police totally turned against the people they were meant to protect. The police brutalize the average person in the street. Women and children are routinely rounded up and beaten. Their cells are clustered with suspects, who are used for all kinds of racketeering for bribe. I will never forget the story a lady, a one-time detainee at the police cell in Akure, told me. The local police, acting on the instruction of the EFCC, had arrested her. They arrested and took her to the police station because they could not find her boyfriend, who was the person they were after for some cyber crimes. Immediately she arrived at the cell, the true character of typical policemen showed. One officer tried to fumble her breasts. She begged them not to. Another officer asked to pay two thousand naira so that she would not be fumbled. She did. Then they took out a police belt and gave her a few lashes for sample, and then told her that every arriving detainee would get beaten. The message was the same - the only way to avoid a thorough beating was for her to pay some money. She paid. They then showed her all the cells, each jammed with detainees in various state of degradation. They showed her also a cell that was not so jammed and where the cell-mates seemed less possessed than those in the overcrowded cells. They then asked her which of the cells she wanted to be put in. She, of course, chose the cell that looked less jammed. The officer then told her how much she had to pay if she did not want to be put in the cells that were overcrowded. And she paid.

A few minutes after she was placed in the cell, the police officers called her out. They gave her a piece of paper to make a statement and explain her role in the alleged offenses. When she finished writing her statement, the officers took it away from her and threatened to kill her if she did not write a different statement, which they dictated for her. The difference was that in the statement they dictated for her, she admitted that she committed all the crimes originally alleged against her boyfriend. The officers took the second statement from her also. A few hours after later, they called her back and told her the price of each of the two statements. For them not to submit the confessional statement, she had to pay ten thousand naira. If she paid that, they would destroy the incriminating statement and place her original statement in her file. Otherwise, they would destroy the original statement and place the incriminating one in her file. She paid. At no point in all this did it bother the officers that the case in question was actually an EFCC case and they were actually holding the lady till the following day when the EFCC operatives would come to take her to Abuja, and only then take her statement.

THE INVOLVEMENT OF THE POLICE IN CRIMES:

The worst aspect of the Nigerian police is not just the mere fact that most officer are mere brutes with not training and not real capabilities in modern law enforcement. Rather, the most dangerous aspect of the Nigerian police has to do with the rouge elements in the force, including some psychopaths, whose obsession is to kill people at random. Among these extremely violent and deadly elements in the force are those who actually spearhead armed robbery attacks and kidnappings. Members of these criminal elements are officers in the police who double as leaders of various criminal gangs. They provide operational instructions and logistical support for various gangs and protect them from the law. But whenever it suits them, they would easily kill a few members of their gangs either for insubordination or other acts of disloyalty. The method would be for the policeman in charge of the gang to set up any member of his gang that he wants to eliminate. That member would be arrested for armed robbery or kidnapping. But the plan will be to kill him before he could reveal information about the gang he belonged to and the people that led such gang. Hence the extra-judicial executions of suspects.

Whenever you hear that the police shut an armed robber or a kidnapper or that a kidnapper who was arrested by the police died in custody, it is likely to be a junior member of a gang that had to be killed to prevent the disclosure of the identity of the real boss, who is a police officer. After some research and investigation, the facts that are emerging are that the Nigerian police have a hand in at least 90% of the kidnappings in the Eastern part of Nigeria and in over 50% of armed robbery in the area. The police do not always kill suspects of armed robbery or kidnapping unless the suspect is an unwanted member of a gang led by the officers. As almost all the gangs for kidnapping in certain states in the Eastern part of Nigeria came to be owned or controlled by the officers of the police force, almost every person accused by the police of kidnapping will surely be killed by the police without trial.

The above findings and projections are totally logical and consistent with observable trends. Most of the suspects paraded by the police are young men who started off with minor brushes with the law, only to be recruited into the gangs by the police they encountered earlier in their crime careers. Otherwise, hardly do you hear of gang-leaders being arrested. Even when the police use the term ‘kingpin’ to describe a suspect, as was done by Mr. Bala Nasarawa on the October 23, 2012 YouTube video, such descriptions never match the facts on the ground. Otherwise, how come that with respect to kidnapping operations that involve several players at various levels, we only hear of the arrest of one or two people, who then get killed. What happened to their leaders? You would never hear of the arrest of the leaders because the leaders are the ones doing the arresting and organizing the parading of suspects.

More questions could be asked. For instance, how do the kidnappers get their constant supply of weapons, if not from sources that had legitimate access to weapons? How come that kidnapping continues to grow, even as the police seem to be arresting and killing more kidnappers? There is supposed to be an inverse relationship between the number of kidnappers killed and the number of kidnapping incidents. That is to say, the more kidnappers arrested and killed, the fewer kidnapping that would occur in the future. But in reality, what is going on in, say, Anambra State is that the more kidnappers arrested or killed, the more kidnappings that occur after. It is either that those arrested and killed as kidnappers were not the real kidnappers or that those arrested and killed are insignificant players in the crime of kidnapping. Otherwise, if the police have been arresting the leaders of the gangs, as they should once they were able to arrest their members, there ought to have been a decline in the number of kidnapping incidents.

From everything taught by the science of criminology, there are some operational peculiarities to kidnapping for ransom that would have prevented it from becoming a rampant crime. First, it requires coordinated gang activities to take the victim, secure the victim, keep him safe, but away from rescue, negotiate ransom, take delivery of ransom and return the victim unharmed and without any trace left behind. This crime involves a whole production team. And it has several risks for detection at any of the various operational stages. The arrest of any of the members of a kidnap gang is supposed to lead to the arrest of at least five other gang members. How come that our policemen who are aware of these crimes, and who ought to monitor the ransom negotiations, their delivery and pick-up, have not been able to crack any major armed robbery gang. All we have seen is the occasional parading of some possible low profile suspects too few to constitute a gang. Even in the absence of specific eyewitness testimonies, which are now available, it is logical to conclude that the police officers are heavily involved in the commission of the crime of kidnapping, particularly in the Eastern states.

RECOMMENDATIONS:

Killing of suspects before trial is not only the wrong way to fight crimes in the society, but it is also a violation of fundamental rights of the suspects. The right to life and right to fair hearing are the most impacted of the rights. The dummy that has been sold to the people, particularly the people from the Eastern part of Nigeria, is the idea that to kill suspects before trial would help reduce crime. The truth is the opposite. The main person interested in killing suspects without trial is the person who is interested in covering up the identify of the leaders of the criminal gangs.

From the human rights abuse prevention point of view, which is my principal premise, we can achieve some success in both ends by taking just the following measures:

(1) Each police station should keep a record of every person arrested or detained for more than fifteen minutes. The record would show the date of the arrest, the place and reasons for the arrest and the place where the person is being detained. The record will also show the date the person was taken to court or the date of his release from custody and the terms of his release.

(2) Each police station shall keep a record of every person who died while in the custody of the police or in a shoot out with the police, the date of death, the manner of death, the place the body is kept.

(3) Every week, such record would be sent one copy to the office of the Attorney-General, and another copy to the Human Rights Commission.

(4) Everybody arrested must be given opportunities to call his relatives or his lawyers to inform them of his arrest, the reasons for his arrest and the police station where he is detained.

(5) Any suspect wounded by the police in a shootout with the police or in any other setting must be taken by the police to a hospital where he would receive treatment and cannot be removed from such hospital until a physician certifies him well enough to leave the hospital.

The benefits of the above recommendations are significant. For one, Nigerians would no longer have to go from one police station to another to check whether their missing relatives were arrested by the police. There will just be a central location where anybody could call to confirm whether his relative was arrested by the police. Also, this will expose the true number of suspects and people killed by the police and dumped in the rivers.

We can further extend this requirement to other law enforcement agencies in Nigeria, such as SSS, EFCC, Immigration, NDLEA, etc. The Attorney-General of Nigeria and the Human Commission should have one central place they can look and know who was arrested, where, when and for what reasons. Also, anybody detained for up to fifteen minutes by any of these agencies would be disclosed even after he has been released. It shall be a serious crime for any law enforcement officer to fail to disclose this information and submit this report accordingly. If we had this in place, the SSS would not detain or intercept Emeka Ugwuonye ten times at the same airport under the same pretext. By the time they report the incident ten times, the world would see them as a joke of a security outfit, which they really are.

This alone will reduce the human rights crisis in this country significantly. It would also reduce crime and protect the society. It would go a long way to elevate the rule of law and due process.