It is not only Yele Sowore that is a victim or casualty of this practice of some officials of the Nigerian Police refusal to comply with the laid down laws.

Femi Falana, SAN who serves as lawyer to Yele Sowore had written to the Nigerian Police citing the judgement of the Court of Appeal in DASUKI Vs. Department of State Security Services (DSS) that the practice of asking civil servants to serve as sureties is illegal.However, the Nigerian Police are not listening.

Another case that demonstrates the fact that the Nigerian Police appear not to listen to the law, even when their own officers welfare is at at stake is the case of the alleged age of retirement of certain officers.

I read with saddness that the Nigerian Police was investigating and about to retire some of it’s finest officers on the alleged falsfication of their age of retirement.

When I investigated the matter I discovered that at least two of these finest officers namely Berth Igweh and Simon Lough, Senior Advocate of Nigeria-SAN are victims of this habit of the Nigerian Police not to follow the dictates of the law.

In a nutshell, the said two offers were issued letters of employment dated 1992 as Assistant Suprintendent of Police (ASP) having applied and admitted into the Nigerian Police through the cadet route as graduates holding University degrees. This new letter of appointment dated 1992 superceded their previous letters of employment as recruits in the year 1986. This is what a court of law had issued as judgment.

However, instead of sticking to the 1992 letter of employment which means that their date of retirement would be after 35 years of service in the year 2028, they are being stampeded to retirement by this panel investigating over 300 police officers that are said to have forged their age of retirement.

Assistant Inspector-General (AIG) Berth Igweh is one of the most professional police officers that I have ever interacted with.

In his capacity as the Commissioner of Police of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). He issued me an “invitation” to come to his office, sometime in the year 2024.

I was advised by several senior lawyers not to honour the said invitation because it could be a ploy to detain me.

This was happening around the period when the Registrar-General of the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) was submitting petitions against the Nigerian Law Society (NLS) and in my capacity as the Executive Director, I was charged with the responsibility of physically going to the offices of all these law enforcement agencies to respond to the petitions against the NLS.

What made it more suspicious was because the invitation by the then Commissioner of Police was by a phone call and not in writing, then he ended the telephone call by saying: “come let’s talk man-to-man”.

After saying what I thought would be my last prayers, I honoured the invitation after I had closed from my office. Our meeting eventually held at about 9pm because of the long line of visitors that were waiting to meet with the said Commissioner of Police.

To my surprise, AIG BERTH IGWEH was very congenial, offered me biscuits and listened attentively to my side of the story.

To my utter shock and surprise, he released me and let me go home. Again, to my utter shock and surprise, he acceded to my suggestion the next day by ordering a medical doctor from the police hospital to conduct a mental health examination of the petitioner that had uttered a petition against me. And at the end of the mental health assessment, I was vindicated because the medical doctor confirmed that the petitioner was of unsound mind. That is how I was set free by AIG BERTH IGWEH from a false and malicious petition.

In contrast to the professional approach of AIG BERTH IGWEH, the same petitioner had previously tried to use another police officer who refused to listen to my own side of the story and the invitation from the said police officer ended up as a fundamental rights enforcement lawsuit.

Simon Lough, SAN is another police officer that falls into this category. I met him through my Master of Laws (LLM) in legislative drafting students. He is an officer and a gentleman.

These two police officers still have at least three years to serve before their retirement. They should be allowed to render their service.

To conclude this article, when we were in secondary school, one of the poems that we had to read as part of the Literature In English language curriculum was entitled: “The Casualties” by John Pepper Clark.

It is an appropriate reminder of how the negative consequences of any war can afflict everyone including the innocent persons who were not even amongst those who started the said war. Although, the poem was written with the Nigerian Civil war in mind, it applies to modern day Nigeria.

This path and pattern of not obeying judgment of the courts of law by both the Nigerian Police and others, is making everyone of us in Nigeria a casualty of injustice.

I will reproduce some excerpts from the poem as follows:

“The casualties are not only those who are dead.

They are well out of it.

The casualties are not only those who are dead.

Though they await burial by installment.

The casualties are not only those who are lost

Persons or property, hard as it is

To grope for a touch that some

May not know is not there.

The casualties are not only those led away by night.

The cell is a cruel place, sometimes a haven.

No where as absolute as the grave.

The casualties are not only those who started a fire and now cannot put out.

Thousands are burning that have no say in the matter.”