Unlawful killing of police officers

In April 2013, fifteen policemen travelling up the creeks in a patrol boat in Azuzuama community, Southern Ijaw Local Government Area of Bayelsa State were ambushed and killed by militants that operated in the area.In one of the most brutal targeted killing of law enforcement personnel in the country, some sixty police officers and 10 […]

In April 2013, fifteen policemen travelling up the creeks in a patrol boat in Azuzuama community, Southern Ijaw Local Government Area of Bayelsa State were ambushed and killed by militants that operated in the area.
In one of the most brutal targeted killing of law enforcement personnel in the country, some sixty police officers and 10 operatives of the State Security Services (SSS) were gunned down in the May 7 attack in Nasarawa State by members of the Ombatse cult.
 There are many other cases all over the country, often not reported, of the unlawful killing of police personnel that should give the authorities cause to sit down and fashion out deterrent procedures.
A common thread in all these cases is the disturbing fact that not much is known about whether the perpetrators were ever brought to justice in any one of them.
No country should allow the wilful killing of its law officers to go unchallenged and for those responsible to find a hiding place anywhere. This failure by law enforcement authorities to find and punish killers of their personnel on duty is a big gap that must be bridged. Before the robbery attack on the bank in Ondo State, there was the case of about 30 policemen reportedly missing after the attack on August 23, 2014 by Boko Haram insurgents in the Gwoza training camp of the Nigeria Police Mobile Force (PMF) in Borno State. The inability of the Nigeria Police to explain the whereabouts of the policemen, and the demonstration of helplessness, is illustrative of the apathy on the part of the authorities to seek legal closure to any incident involving the loss of life of each police personnel.
The height of this insensitivity was brought to the fore in the case of the Ombatse mayhem, when the Director General of the SSS scandalously offered his agency’s ‘forgiveness’ to the murderers.  
Such attitude, which has no basis in law or commonsense, showed the levity with which the authorities treat the lives of on-duty law enforcement personnel.   Worse is the neglect of the welfare of family members of missing or police personnel killed on active duty who are not adequately catered for by the authorities.
As a body of trained personnel who traditionally hold the fort in terms of law enforcement, it should give the government a great deal of concern when policemen are targeted and killed at will without the authorities launching  vigorous inquiries to identify, apprehend and prosecute those responsible. The police as an institution are the first and last line of defence for the citizens in the struggle between civil liberty and anarchy.  When that line is weakened, the underworld strengthens, and the society at large bears the brunt.  Such a trend portends a serious threat and should not be allowed to gain a foothold.
But the remedy cannot be the type that Mr Mbu Joseph Mbu, the outgoing Assistant Inspector General of Police for the Federal Capital Territory, suggested recently. Mr Mbu was quoted to have warned communities that the police force would henceforth ‘raze down’ any community where a policeman is killed. That itself is a big problem, because it would amount to collective punishment that may not necessarily net the criminals.  Law enforcement should embrace the painstaking intelligence gathering that is required as a first step to solving a crime.
 No case of the unlawful killing of a policeman should be closed, and the authorities must not rest on their oars, until the crime is solved and the perpetrators punished.