Our lives, by slain cops’ families – 935 policemen killed by Boko Haram since 1999 – HRW

At a time of heightened security concerns where criminals and militia groups had targeted policemen for death, some families of policemen slain in the line of duty say they have been left at the mercy of relatives, neighbours and the kindness of strangers. While in the past armed robbers account for the highest rates of […]

At a time of heightened security concerns where criminals and militia groups had targeted policemen for death, some families of policemen slain in the line of duty say they have been left at the mercy of relatives, neighbours and the kindness of strangers. While in the past armed robbers account for the highest rates of death among policemen on active duty, Weekly Trust checks show militias, especially the Boko Haram sect, had significantly bumped up the recent high toll of death among the police.

Human Rights Watch reported that police death from Boko Haram attacks alone nears 1,000 so far, with police deaths from the sect’s attack this year about 250 while an estimated 935 policemen have been killed by the sect since 1999, even though accurate figures are not available for police deaths in the hands of armed robbers and other criminals.

Anna, 32, whose policeman husband was slain six months ago in Port Harcourt says she and her children have yet to receive the insurance money due to them with the death of their breadwinner in active service. She says: “I have been managing with helps from family members. I have gone to the police several times with church members to see if his insurance will be paid but they kept telling us to come back the next day. They finally said I should wait to be invited to Abuja with my children.”

Now, she laments that “my husband who died while trying to protect members of the public was buried without any assistance from the Nigerian Police Force. He was the only man helping me.  Now he is gone.  My problem is how to train this child he left behind. We’re suffering.”

With the rise of bombings, first by Niger Delta militants and then Boko Haram sect members, the police have often taken flak for failure to arrest the security situation. But they also have recorded the most casualties among the security forces, as militias not only engage with the police in the streets but also storm police formations, detonating explosives that usually leave scores of policemen dead. Added to this toll are the scores of policemen that get gunned down by armed robbers who roam major highways in Nigeria and also attack banks and businesses.

While public angst against police failure to stem the tide of crime rises, lurking in the shadows are tired, angry and suffering wives and children of policemen slain in the line of duty who say they have been abandoned by the government after their husbands have paid with their lives to secure the lives of other citizens. Mama Lucy, mother of four and widow of a slain policeman in Lagos told Weekly Trust at the shack she lives in at Oduduwa Street, Ikeja, that since the death of her husband last year her children have dropped out of school because his entitlement has not been paid. “I only manage to put up this wooden structure so that I can have a roof over my family’s head,” she says.  “It was tough even when my husband was alive, living on his meagre salary But it is now more difficult surviving along with four children on the petty trading I’m into. We were driven out of the MOPOL Barracks, Ikeja, two weeks after my husband died and over one year after, nothing is being said about his entitlements.”

Just recently relocated from the same Oduduwa Street is Blessing who says both the police and pension office have abandoned them. She now lives behind MOPOL 20 office in a makeshift house, though she says a relative had helped her with money to rent an apartment in Egbeda where she hopes to relocate soon. She recounts with bitterness the family’s experience when her husband was shot by armed robbers. “Rather than giving him a heroic burial,” she recounts, “His remains was conveyed to the village in a police truck. As if that was not enough, another policeman quickly went and applied to be given our room when we were still in the village mourning. It took the intervention of some other policemen before we were allowed to stay the little time we did.”

A small community of families of policemen who were either killed during official assignment or died as a result of being sick have built for themselves wooden houses behind offices at the Lagos State Police Public Relations Department, Oduduwa Street, Ikeja, while those who were unable, settled behind the MOPOL office not too far away. Most of the children from these families, particularly those who have dropped out of school, have resorted to washing cars for mobile policemen for a stipend to earn a living.

Suleiman Abba, Rivers State Commissioner of Police, in an interview with Weekly Trust in Port Harcourt said if a policeman dies in active duty, the Federal and state governments do a lot for his or her next-of-kin. “The burial expenses are paid without any delay. The arrangement for paying his insurance is made and in Rivers State, the state government pays the sum of N1 million instantaneously to the family and takes responsibility of four of his or her children as well as an informal effort by colleagues coming together to assist.” When asked on why some slain police officers families are complaining they have not received such benefits after their husbands died in active duty, the police commissioner pointed out that it may be as a result of identifying who the true next-of-kin of the officer is.

The Police authorities in Lagos said that it was the responsibility of the Police Pension to pay death benefits to families of deceased policemen. The Lagos State Police Public Relations Officer, Samuel Jinadu told Weekly Trust that some of the difficulties witnessed by family could be traceable to negligence on the part of the policemen. Some of them had not updated their files before they died while others have their files in other states. It is the file that officials of pensions work on.”

The Deputy Force Public Relations Officer at the police headquarters in Abuja, CSP Yemi Ajayi said the payment of death benefits to the dependants of deceased officers take some time because of bureaucratic procedures. “Monies for the payment of death benefits are not always available. The Force has to make a request in the budget and await government approval. The process takes time, because the request has to be checked at different stages.” He said monies for funerals are being given to the dependants of dead officers as soon as the Force is notified. “The funeral money is paid without delay unlike other benefits.” He said the dependants of the deceased are allowed to stay in the barracks for at least three months before they leave. “It is wrong to say that families of deceased officers are forced to vacate their residence immediately.”

But desperate for help, families of slain police officers are sometimes forced to offer bribes to other police officers so as to speed up the process for them to receive the entitlements due to them. CSP Ajayi says of this practice, “Any policeman found guilty of collecting kickback from the families of dead policemen before giving them their benefits will have himself to blame. I urge people to forward the names of these officers to the force headquarters for punishment. The Force has discouraged dependants of deceased officers from giving anybody money as inducement to assist them.”

Officers’ accounts of monies paid to deceased colleagues suggests the sum is around N1.5 million to N2 million.

Despite assurances by police authorities that families of slain policemen get paid their entitlements and benefits, at the death of a police officer his family become apprehensive largely due to past experiences suffered by other families who met a similar fate. Hajia Hafsat, a widow in Gombe who is mourning the recent killing of her two sons who are police corporals by the Boko Haram sect is one such person. Since the killing of her two sons who were corporals serving with the Nigeria Police Force, life has not been the same for the sixty-year-old mother in Kumo. The aged Hajiya Hafsat lost her two sons concurrently on what the families describe as two ‘Black Fridays’ in separate attacks by Boko Haram at Damaturu and the recent January 20th attack in Kano State.

The deceased corporals, Idris Garba and Bala Garba Abari, left their two pregnant wives (Aishatu and Binta) with five little children in the care of their aged mother whose source of livelihood hitherto rested squarely on her deceased husband, Mallam Mohammed Na-Musa, who died six years ago. She told Weekly Trust that though many families were affected in different ways by the Boko Haram attack, she will however consider herself as the worst victim, having lost her two precious sons. “The youngest one was the first to bid me farewell to go to Damaturu and promised to come back, but he never did. The eldest one, after the burial of his brother also bid me farewell to go to Kano, he too never came back.”

Hafsat is worried that although her two sons died in the active service of their fatherland, so far not even a single word of condolence has come from the police authorities to the family. She now fears her sons may not finally get the entitlement benefits due to their families after their death.

The younger corporal, Idris Garba who was the first victim went to Damaturu to pick his belongings after he was transferred to his home state, when he was caught in the attack at the police headquarters in Damaturu. When the elder Garba concluded arrangements with some family members to travel to Damaturu and start pursuing his deceased brother’s benefits, the family met and advised him to hold on until the security situation in the area improved.

An uncle to the deceased, Isiyaku Hashim says the family had to prevail upon the elder corporal to take heart and report back to work after the killing of his brother because he has already made up his mind to resign. Hashim said: “On hearing of the Kano attack, the family called to find out about the status in Bala’s command at the police headquarters in Bompai, and he answered his phone and reassured us of their safety, only for the story to change some few hours after, as he was killed.”

Hajiya Hafsat now pleads with the police authorities to assist in securing the release of the deceased’s benefits to the family to enable them support themselves and pay the school fees of their children. Two other family members who are police officers, Weekly Trust gathered, have been under intense pressure from some elderly members of the family to leave the police force to avert the possible repeat of the tragedy that befell their two deceased brothers. Mohammed Garba, a family member who just got enrolled into the police training college in Bauchi said: “Though the tragedy that befell the family is painful, we have succeeded in convincing other family members to agree that death is inevitable and it will come when and where it must.”