from EMEKA OKONKWO in Abuja, Nigeria
Nigeria Bureau
ABUJA, (CAJ News) – TORTURE is reportedly rife in Nigeria’s detentions facilities, with conditions said to be dire.
The United Nations Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture (SPT) has raised concern following its delegation visited the West African country from September 8 to 19.
The delegation was in Nigeria, for the second time in ten years, to assess the treatment of individuals in detention, and whether the country had strengthened its capacity to protect the human rights of people deprived of liberty, including through the proper functioning of a National Preventive Mechanism.
It reported it was not well received.
“The delegation regrets the lack of cooperation from Nigerian authorities, during and prior to the visit,” said Shujune Muhammad, the head of the delegation.
“We were confronted with a climate of hostility and faced access issues in several places of detention,” the official added.
She said the SPT delegation visited numerous places of deprivation of liberty, including detention facilities for men, women and children, police stations, criminal investigation departments as well as facilities run by agencies combating drug and people trafficking, among others.
“The situation in most places of detention is abysmal,” Muhammad reported.
She said Nigeria must urgently take measures to prevent torture and ill-treatment and to improve conditions of detention, especially in police stations and other similar facilities.
“Legal safeguards must be immediately implemented, and the current impunity of perpetrators for acts of torture must end,” Muhammad said.
The delegation noted that a decade since the first SPT visit, Nigeria was yet to establish a functional national preventive mechanism.
The team met with the Minister of Justice, parliamentarians, judges, prosecutors, and other relevant authorities, the Bar association, civil society organizations and UN agencies.
It has presented its confidential preliminary observations to the Government of Nigeria.
The administration of President Bola Tinubu had not commented.
– CAJ News