By Awesome Ekene
The Rule of Law and Accountability Advocacy Centre (RULAAC) has urged Nigerians to disregard the recent call by the Inspector General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun for a stop in reporting human rights abuses by police operatives on the social media.
Executive Director, Okechukwu Nwanguma made the call during a townhall meeting on the Human Rights, the Police Act 2020 and other regulations, held in Enugu on Thursday.
The IGP Egbetokun had during the opening ceremony of the PPROs and Police Communication Experts’ Conference in Asaba tagged, “Strengthening Nigeria Police Force Oversight and Accountability Mechanism”, argued that reporting such infractions on social media destroys the image of the police, rather than solve the problem.
He was said to have advised the citizens instead, to report such violations and misconduct by police personnel to the Complaint Response Unit (CRU) of the Police.
In a swift reaction, however, Nwanguma said the IGP’s appeal reinforced the effectiveness of the social media in exposing the corruption in the police force.
He said human rights violations that had necessitated prompt action from the Police Force in either investigation or disciplinary actions were the ones reported on social media.
The RULAAC boss wondered why the police force would be more concerned about their image, rather than doing the right thing and getting the police service system working effectively.
He said: “When I read the report where the IGP was asking Nigerians not to report violations and police infractions on social media, I was tempted to laugh because what that told me clearly was that social media is working.
“A lot of the violations that happened in this country that generated public outcry and forced the government to take one action or the other would have simply been swept under the carpet if there was no social media.
“What it shows is that they are not comfortable with the fact that all these bad things are being exposed.”
Nwanguma encouraged Nigerians to continue using social media to expose the ills of the police since, according to him, the police have consistently shown a tendency towards covering up their personnel’s wrongdoings rather than exposing them.
“Nigerians should ignore the appeal by the IGP and continue to use social media to report every negative action or misconduct because as we know, the police by their natural tendency, would rather cover up violations and infractions by their men, rather than investigate them in a transparent and accountable way.
“So, since the social media is helping to expose a lot of negativities and making sure that the police stay on their toes to do the right thing, Nigerians should disregard the IGP’s call and continue to use the social media responsibly,” he concluded.
