Stop Public Parade Of Suspects

The suspects

As someone who in the last few days has declared his government’s commitment to respect human rights, President Muhammadu Buhari should ensure that public abuse of suspects by the Nigeria Police stops now.

Time and time again, reasonable Nigerians have called on the police and other law enforcers to desist from the illegal parade of suspects awaiting trial. In a society like ours where the rule of law is supposed to be in place, the police should be reminded that the constitution invokes the presumption of innocence for all suspects.

To his credit, a former Inspector-General of Police, Mohammed Abubakar, once ordered police commands across the nation to stop the act of parading suspects while investigations are still in process. Nevertheless, this call for the police to respect the human rights of all suspects under arrest and prosecution has been undermined continuously during the police leadership of Solomon Abba and now under the present police leadership.

A case in point is the Rivers State Police Command which just paraded multiple suspects with the Rivers State Commissioner of Police, Chris Ezike, in supervision.

The African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights Act, and our constitution, clearly state that the unlawful parade of suspects awaiting arraignment in court, before the media in particular, takes away the suspects’ right to a fair hearing and undercuts their basic human rights and safety.

These suspects have not yet had their day in court, and as such, cannot conceivably have been convicted by a court of law. The only conviction is by the media with the blessing of the police and other law enforcement agencies.

It appears that this backward practice is nothing more than a sensationalised circus side show by state command heads in their drive for popularity.

On a psychological level, there are times when the identification of suspects is warranted, which is known as a police line-up or identity parade, but it is supposed to be a highly supervised, private and confidential process by which a crime victim or witness is asked to identify a suspect. Even this type of line-up, known generally as eyewitness identification, is marked with a long controversial history to this very day.

This type of public shame and media trial of suspects could affect judicial authorities consciously and/or unconsciously, as they may have seen the paraded suspects on TV or in the newspapers with a face marked with “guilt and embarrassment” as a result of the undue pressure and guard of the police.

Ordinarily, our system calls for a suspect upon arrest to appear in court and enter a plea as in guilty and not guilty. He or she could be subjected to a period of temporary custody prior to trial or bail. And should the suspect go through trial and be adjudicated as guilty by a magistrate, a judge or a Grand Khadi, a criminal conviction would then follow. This could then be the right time to parade the offender, as the person is no longer a suspect but a defined criminal!

But, if at the beginning of the case, the charges are dropped; or, at the end of the trial, the accused is entitled to acquittal and freed, and is, therefore, not sentenced to prison, what then becomes of the stigma of the initial public disgrace or parade by law enforcement officials?

As psychology tells us, feelings of shame could be far worse than emotions of guilt. Shame, in itself, is a potent, painful and, generally, a dangerous emotion—especially for those who have been paraded knowing they are completely innocent of the accusation(s), or acquitted of the charge(s).

Punch