Inside Nigeria’s brutal narco wars

How suspected drug users are brutally assaulted by law enforcement agents With reports of young people now boiling sanitary pads and diapers to get high, cases of drug and substance abuse are on the rise. But law enforcement officers have had a reputation for using brutal force to crack down on suspected drug users resulting […]

• How suspected drug users are brutally assaulted by law enforcement agents

With reports of young people now boiling sanitary pads and diapers to get high, cases of drug and substance abuse are on the rise. But law enforcement officers have had a reputation for using brutal force to crack down on suspected drug users resulting in allegations of torture and harassment as Daily Trust reports.   

 

Ibrahim Ali has an ugly scar on his left wrist and a bloody right eye. He is a drug user with a frail frame, sallow skin and a wobbly gait.

“I have been taking drugs for 12 years. I thought I was doing it for recreation but look at me now, I am sick and I need treatment but I can’t afford it. Worst of all, I am perceived as a criminal and not as a sick person. The police are always after people  ike me, even when we don’t commit crime(s),” he said in Hausa.  Ali is one of scores of young men and women who use drugs across  Nigeria and have had hostile encounters  with the police. On a daily basis, they are arrested, often tortured and incarcerated for smoking cannabis sativa, locally known as hemp, or taking other psychoactive substances.

This investigation, alongside interviews with YouthRISE Nigeria, an Abuja based Non-Governmental Organization (NGO),  working with international   partners  to improve the human rights of people who use drugs, has made startling  revelations.

Operating under the cover of enforcing anti-drug laws, the police make arbitrary  arrests of people who use drugs, in the process, torturing and injuring some, and violating their human rights. Ali explained that he was shot in the wrist by the police near Sabon Gari Stadium, in January of 2018, but was abandoned at the Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital, by the same police who took him there. His parents and relations had to foot the medical bills.

“I was also arrested during the Eidel Fitr Sallah Durbar at State Road  alongside 29 others. I was beaten up by the Kano State Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) and got injured in the eye. On that day, we were not smoking neither were we taking any substances. When

they saw us hanging around watching the durbar, they pounced on us, claiming that we were hoodlums and ‘drug addicts’. We spent two days in the SARS detention facility and we were taken to court. But they told us that they did not have any case against us so anyone who had money should bail himself out. I paid N50,000 to regain my freedom,” he added.

Muhammadu Jamilu, 24, lives in Yankaba and is also drug dependent. He said he had been doing drugs for six years and he had been arrested many times by the police, either smoking hemp in the neighbourhood or while buying it.

“The police arrested me on Sallah day when I went to buy N100 worth of substances. When I saw them coming towards my direction,  started running and while they were chasing me, I tripped and fell. Then they arrested me and took me to Koki police station in Kano metropolis where I was detained for two days before my parents bailed me out with N4,500. But before I was released, I was flogged with a horsewhip; you can see the scars on my back,” he said.

He also said on another occasion, he was arrested by a policeman who was smoking hemp with him. He said he had a disagreement with his friend and he threatened to stab the friend, then the policeman who was allegedly smoking with them arrested him and took him to Farm Centre Police Station where he was detained for a day and taken to court at No Man’s Land.

He, however, said he was afraid to report the policeman to authorities. “I knew I wouldn’t get justice against a police officer,” he said. “The court remanded me for six months but the governor pardoned me before I could complete the six months.

While I was in prison, I could still get drugs,” he added. But the Kano police command’s public relations officer, DSP Magaji Majia, told our reporter on phone that the areas mentioned in the report were black spots for crime. He said when police raid such places, they treat people whom they arrest there as criminals. He added that those who use drugs in Kano were criminals and that the command would not relent in its efforts to rid the city of criminals.

“These people you are talking about are criminals. Each time our officers and men go to arrest them, they are armed with dangerous weapons. Even last week they killed an inspector in Yankaba,” he said.

Ibrahim Isa, 23, on his part alleged that he was arrested by National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) operatives early this  year at Yankaba and driven to Wudil road. He said he did not have any substances on him but the NDLEA agents tortured him for being a ‘drug addict’ and they extorted N2,000 from him.

Responding to the allegations against the NDLEA agents, the Kano State commandant of the agency, Hamza Umar, said his officers do not torture suspects, adding that there were fake agents out there impersonating officers of the agency to extort money from unsuspecting members of the public. He said the agency does not regard drug users as criminals, “they are young men and women who have over enjoyed.

We don’t beat, torture or maltreat them here in Kano,” he said, stressing that the agency had a rehabilitation centre where some drug-dependent people were being rehabilitated. “However, lack of facilities has hampered our detoxification process. The only thing we do for now is counsel them,” he added. Buhari Abba’s life was snuffed out by a police bullet, when a wrap of hemp was found on him at a check point. A police corporal posted to Jiwa Junction, Gwagwa, Abuja, on Sunday, February 18, 2018 shot and killed Abba, during a stop and search operation at the junction. At the time of the incident, the policeman was arrested by the Kubwa Area Command for allegedly shooting Abba to death.

Daily Trust learnt that the policeman was conducting a stop and search on motorists along with three other colleagues around 8:30  A.M when he stopped a tricycle popularly known as “Keke Napep” going to Karmo and demanded its rider to park. A family member explained that the passengers on board the tricycle were ordered to present themselves for a search, and Abba, who was sitting by the side of the driver, made an attempt to flee but was grabbed by the suspect (policeman) and a wrap of Indian hemp was found in his pocket.

While the victim was ordered by the policeman to follow him to the Gwagwa police division for further investigation, the victim freed himself from the grip of the policeman and started to run, but again, the policeman chased him and when he couldn’t catch him, shot him.

The late Abba hailed from Alkaleri Local Government Area of Bauchi State, and was doing business at the tomato market, Deidei, following his graduation from a Polytechnic in his state. In Lagos, some of the drug users our reporter spoke with claimed the police had attempted raping them during raids at smoking joints.

Bolatife Adewale is a 23 years old and she lives in Kaka Zone of Agege, a rambling slum area of Lagos. She has been doing drugs for just three years but she has had a good dose of harassment from the police. “On my birthday, which was on February 3, 2018, I was outside the ‘joint’ when the police came in commando style and started picking up people.

“Others ran away but those of us who could not run were picked up and hauled into their van. Then one of the officers said he must have sex with me before I would be released. When I refused, I was jailed for three days at Isokoko police station,” she said. On another occasion, she was arrested at Akewale area of Agege and the same officer allegedly demanded to have sex with her and when she refused, the policeman allegedly beat her up with a cable, tear gassed her and extorted N3,500 from her. She insisted that she was not a criminal and didn’t deserve that kind of treatment from the police. She said she was a school dropout but was into fashion designing.

Diana Joseph is an outreach coordinator for Heartland Alliance International, Nigeria. She is also a counselor tester, working in communities with high population of People Who Use Drugs (PWUD) but she has not been spared by the police either.

In the second week of July 2018, while she was at a PWUD community to test women for HIV, she was caught up in a police raid. “When I went out to conduct intervention for women in a PWUD community, the police raided the place and arrested everybody. They threw away my condoms after ransacking my bag. Then they took us to Katangwa market police station in Alimosho Local Government and told the DPO that I was the one distributing needles and syringes for those injecting drugs,” she said.

She further alleged that the policemen who arrested her fondled her breasts and touched her inappropriately all over her body while handcuffing her. “While they searched me they found a wrap of skunk (SK) on me. I just bought the SK as an entry ticket into the community so that I can test them for HIV,” she added, saying her bosses at Heartland came and posted her bail for N15,000.

Miss Joseph said that kind of situation happens rampantly in her line of work.  “Sometimes, I bribe them with a pack of condoms and go my way,” she added. The Lagos state police command spokesman, Chike Oti, while responding to the allegations said the command has a citizens’ complaints help centre, which has dedicated lines distributed all over Lagos.

Oti who spoke on phone with our reporter added that the Lagos State commissioner of police, Imohimi Edgal, has a high disciplinary scorecard, having dismissed 17 police officers over disciplinary issues in less than one year. “I encourage anybody who has case against policemen to come forward and state their case,” he said.

Asked the difference between drug users and dealers, he said there was a thin line dividing a user and a dealer. “The nexus is that you are found with an illegal substance,” he added, explaining why users are also arrested by the police.

The spokesman further stated that there was a thin line dividing drugs and crime. “Ninety percent of the cultists (secret society members) we arrest are high on drugs. We recover drugs from them when we carry out raids during their initiation ceremonies. So, we are doing our best to curb crime and the police in Lagos will not leave them alone. If we see them taking drugs, we must arrest them because they are heartless people.

Whenever they take drugs, they just hack people down on the streets,” he said. He insisted that policing was designed around protection of human rights, such that whatever they did was within the ambit of the law. The Global Commission on Drug Policy’s 2017 Report, focuses on the world drug perception problem and how to counter prejudices about people who use drugs.

The report enunciates that negative perception of people who use drugs has fuelled the violation of human rights of individuals, while it has also deterred national governments of some countries from developing comprehensive drug policies that aim more at harm reduction than prohibitionist frameworks.