Human rights is those basic standards without which people cannot live in dignity. To violate human rights is to treat an individual as though he/she were not a human being. To advocate for human rights is to demand that the human dignity of people be respected. (www1.umn.edu)



In order not to waste time unnecessarily, trying to give an account of the degree at which human rights have been violated in most countries in the world, I will go straight to the purpose of this contribution. Most of the people I have met with have always been proactive when it comes to talks about humanity, they suddenly become unnecessarily energized especially when it comes to talks about human rights violation and abuse. “A suspect should not spend more than 24 hours in custody”, a friend was telling me recently, almost shouting at the top of his voice. Whereas, I have seen cases where suspects spend nothing less than two to four days in detention, with security operatives “assuring” that individual about the fact that he is going to stay longer than that in detention. Funny enough, months after his outburst, my colleague was nabbed on his way to a function. What was his offence? He was arrested because of the fact that he was wearing an “afro” hair that was making the security operatives uncomfortable about his integrity. At the point of his arrest, while asking for a comprehensive knowledge about his arrest, like every rational individual will do, in response, he was “bestowed” with the most dynamic beating of his life. While he was sharing his experience in detention with me days after he was arrested, I was forced to ask him questions related to his fundamental rights, “But you should have insisted on the fact that suspects shouldn’t spend more than 24hours in detention now”, I asked jokingly, trying to tease him. “But you should have requested for the right to speak with an attorney”, I added, thus, acting like I was clueless about the manner the security operatives treats suspects in the country, then trying to tease the remaining guts out of him in the process, the guts he had months ago, when he was shouting at the top of his voice about the duration of detention of suspects.

To be honest with you all, many of us knows our fundamental rights, and can debate it to any length, except in the presence of security operatives. That is because of the fact that the security operatives doesn’t observe –most times- human rights when it comes to arrest of suspects, they subject them to torture, starting from the instance they were arrested. It doesn’t happen only in Nigeria, but all over the world, as opposed to the article I read recently, purported to be written from a publication from Amnesty international, pointing to Nigeria, as “hell fire” where suspects were subjected to serious amount of torture, but it is only that in Nigeria, it is more pronounced. There are two terms I need to clarify here, the term “torture” and the term “suspects.”

An applicant was arrested in November 1991 following a police investigation into drug trafficking, filed a case against some police officers, who examined him. During his detention, he was examined by several doctors and medical certificates were issued. He was particularly quoted to have said that he was subjected to some sort of ill-treatment while in custody, ranging from being repeatedly hit, to being dragged along by his hair, and the worst of all, being urinated on and being threatened with syringe. The judge appointed forensic experts to examine the applicant, and it was confirmed that the applicant’s injury were sustained at a time which corresponded with the period of police custody. (BUTTERWORTHS HUMAN RIGHTS CASES PG. 1)

Similarly, in an application (no 25803/94) to the European Commission of Human Rights on 28, December 1992, Ahmed Selmouni complained that the ill-treatment to which he had been subjected while in police custody and the length of the proceedings relating to his criminal complaint and application to join the proceedings as a civil party violated the guarantee against torture and his right to a fair trial within a reasonable time under arts 3 and 6(1) of the convection for the protection of Human rights and fundamental freedoms 1950. The commission declared the application admissible on 25 November 1996 and on 16 march 1998 referred the case to the European court of human rights. (BUTTERWORTHS HUMAN RIGHTS CASES PG. 3)

The result of the cases above was that the perpetrators were found guilty and were prosecuted. The term “suspects” is used to refer to individuals who were found culpable or guilty of committing an offence (or something to his discredit) without CONCLUSIVE proof. An individual is said to be a suspect if he is CONSIDERED culpable of a crime, without evidently-convincing proof. An individual remains a suspect, not because the individual committed the crime, but because he is CONSIDERED to have committed it without (in the absence of substantial) evidences, and as such his fundamental rights still covers him and as such, he can’t be treated just anyhow (the services of a legal practitioner might be needed for enforcement of such privileges). A suspect is not a criminal until there are evidences, which might not be obtained until there are “intense interrogations” of sort. These intense interrogations can be carried out without infringing on anyone’s human dignity. As such, there should be a distinction between the treatment being meted out to a suspect and the one a criminal will be subjected to during interrogation… Human rights exhibits its characteristics towards being inalienable and indivisible, Indivisible because you cannot be denied a because it is less important or less essential, and inalienable because you cannot lose these rights any more than you can cease being a human being.

I refer to torture as a deliberate abuse (either physical or psychological) which categorically breaches (or threatens) the fundamental rights of an individual. But “advanced” definitions referred to it as an act of causing great physical or mental pain in order to persuade someone to do something or to give information, or to be cruel to a person or animal. Another defined it as a deliberate infliction of intense pain or suffering on body or mind, others gave it as wrenching out of shape, But the question is, do we have to go to the extent of “wrenching” (as it is being done today) to extract the truth from an individual? Considering the fact that these individuals aren’t animals…they deserve some liberty.

It has come to my notice that some security operatives have, all in the name of eradicating cultism, begin to trample upon some individual’s dignity by arresting those with ideological based appearances. Especially in Nigeria, all they do is to observe your appearance and the next thing is to subject you to immediate torture, and an immediate arrest. They basically infringe on the human rights benefits, as they don’t want to know if you are just a suspect or a “pick-up” victim. This was the kind of experience, my aforementioned colleague encountered. He was called all sort of names by the security operatives for wearing an “Afro hair”…He was harassed, tortured and given the worst “heat treatment” of his life. If that is the way the security operatives have been hunting for criminals, I say with all sense of modesty, that it is wrong. I call that an arrest that is motivated by ideological imbalances. In fact, that makes it possible, perhaps for the “main” suspects to be mistaken for criminals, as appearance shouldn’t be the basis for nabbing suspects. Except, if the security operatives were also given mandates as to Internally Generated Revenues! Then, it could be said that their actions are largely attributed to their trying to beat “a certain deadline”, or what do you all think?

To me personally, I think people needs to be orientated about their rights to non-infringement of fundamental rights… What do I mean by non-infringement of fundamental rights? When fundamental rights does exists, it is necessary to protect it or guide it, therefore non-infringement of fundamental rights is another way of saying that people deserve rights to the protection of their fundamental rights, that is, rights to non-interference into fundamental rights assurances or guarantees… Everyone accepts the responsibility not to infringe on the rights of others and to support those whose rights are abused or denied. For people still have human rights even if the laws or those in power do not recognize or protect them. (www1.umn.edu)



BY: ORIMOLOYE, Ifeoluwa is the national general secretary of the national association of Akure students