Ex-NBA Ikeja Branch Chairman Aguegbodo Calls For Better Police Training On Human Rights Laws

*Says Lawyers Must Also Learn How To Handle Police Interactions

The men of the Nigerian police force need to be trained more on human rights laws if the current rate of human rights violation is to be curtailed in Nigeria, the immediate past Chairman of the Nigerian Bar Association Ikeja Branch, Barth Aguegbodo has said.

Mr Aguegbodo said this on Friday during a parly with press men at the NBA Ikeja Bar Centre.

He stated that most police men have no Idea about the seriousness of human rights violation and that was the reason why he had taken it upon himself to regularly visit the criminal division of Lagos police command at panti to train them on human rights laws and the responsibility of the Police.

Aguegbodo stressed the need for an orientation within the policy, a re-education of what constitutes human rights and what constitutes a violation, enforcement of sanctions against erring security personnel and an orientation of lawyers on conduct.

“Speaking on the issue of police brutality, or the infringement of security operatives on human rights of citizens, I’ve always advocated a three prong approach to it.

“The first one is that there must be orientation within the policy, a re-education of what constitutes human rights and what constitutes a violation. The NBA in collaboration with other CLOs must fashion out programs that will enlighten the police periodically. If a police officer does not understand what constitutes a violation of a right, he cannot protect that”.

While calling on the Nigerian Bar Association NBA, to ensure that lawyers are trained on dealing effectively with the police, he also called on the association to also ensure that erring police officers are dealt with so as to serve as a deterrent to others officers.

“In most cases when a policeman is recall for cases of human rights violation, the officer is normally reposted to another division or outside the state, but if they are made to face stiffer punishment then it will truly serve as deterrent ”

“There must be enforcement of sanctions against erring security personnel who breach human rights. It will not be restricted only to the issue of internal disciplinary control because that is not sufficient to curb officers from violating human rights.

“For example, there is no provision of the law that says that you can not bail on weekends or that someone wife can not bail her husband.

“When citizens are allowed to pursue their civil rights, enforce their fundamental rights and pursue criminal matters against the police for assault, it will go a long way to send a message to erring officers that every action has consequences”.

Aguegbodo further added that the law provides that a lawyer must be present while a suspect in been interviewed or interrogated by the police, but they (lawyer’s) should not reach their client or try to tell them what to say during interrogation because this course of action will get the police angry with unpalatable consequences.

“There must be also be an orientation of lawyers on how to conduct themselves when they are to meet with the police in order to avoid a fracas between the lawyer and the police. I strongly believe that if these industry approaches are adopted, there will be an improvement in the issue of human rights issues”, he said.

Also speaking on the effect of the Supreme Court having the full complement of 21 justices as presently constituted by the law, Aguegbodo noted that it will reduce the workload on the Supreme Court.

“There is no comparison between having a full complement of 21 justices and a complement of only 10 justices. A panel of Supreme Court is made up of five justices except for exceptional matters where it has to be seven. So having the full complement of 21 affords the call to have three sitting panels at every given point in time and not to go to long way to reduce the workload on the court.

“With the full complement of course, things are bound to move faster than it did in the past.”

However he noted the need for standard infrastructures while stating that the occasional delay in the Supreme court is not only as a result of excess workload on the justices but an infrastructural deficit of the court.

“Even if we have 21 justices sitting at the court, as it is presently constituted today, if we do not have the infrastructural ability as in the regular supply of light, upgrading the supreme court procedures to a digital court will still come back to the same problem we are having.”

On the very intricate topic of whether all matters should end at the Supreme Court Aguegbodo stated that the court of appeal is not in all states and this will pose a challenge if all cases are not to end up at the Supreme Court because of the volume of work.

He acknowledged that the first challenge will be deciding what categories of matters will qualify to go to the Supreme Court and what categories are automatically qualified to end at the court of appeals.

“We have to first amend the Constitution to reflect what goes to the Supreme Court and what ends at the Court of Appeal. We must all agree that the process of amendment of our Constitution is not the child’s play. So if the cases taken to the supreme court are to be reduced, aside amending the constitution each state must be provided with a Court of Appeal of its own so that all matters from each state that are not of federal nature will end at its own court of appeal, said Aguegbodo.

On some current challenges facing the NBA, Mr Aguegbodo said that leadership requires great wisdom and some current crisis should not have been allowed to get to this level because they were avoidable. He urged the current leadership to look deeply and apply wisdom.