Heart-rending stories of tortured victims denied justice
Despite Nigeria’s constitutional guarantees and the existence of the Anti-Torture Act, narratives of bruised bodies in detention cells, haunting testimonies, and abuse, point to the fact that torture remains a part of the country’s law enforcement system. DANIA ONOZURE writes
For 16 years, Kazeem Adeshina, a 53-year-old roadside mechanic turned commercial driver, languished in prison. As a commercial driver, he shuttled between Oju Ore, Winners and Sango from which he raised money to feed his family. Adeshina’s nightmare began on a night in June 2008 when police officers from the now-disbanded Special Anti-Robbery Squad stormed his home in Sango Ota, Ogun State. “I lost everything,” Adeshina said, with tears rolling down his face. “My wife died while I was in prison. I couldn’t even bury her. Everything I worked for vanished.”
Narrating his ordeal, Adeshina, who spoke in Yoruba, said, “Sometimes in June 2008, around 1 am, I was at home sleeping when we heard a big bang on the entrance door. It was forced open. The bang woke my neighbours as it happened at a time when there was a curfew due to a leadership crisis between Ijoko and Ota over who became the king.
“They forced their way in and dragged me out. They asked if I knew my friend, Femi Olaniyan. I responded in the affirmative and they mandated me to take them to his house.”
Adeshina recounted that the police raided Olaniyan’s home in the same brutal manner.
“Femi and his wife were naked when they burst into their room. A neighbour had to give his wife a wrapper to cover herself,” he said.
Adeshina recalled that the officers picked up other men from the area before driving them all to the SARS office in Ikeja.
Tortured and broken
At the SARS office, Adeshina and dozens of others faced horrific torture. He described being tied with his hands behind his back, his legs chained, and a cement-filled bucket strapped to his back.
“They hung me from a rope in a roofless room under the scorching sun; I still live with back pain because of what they did to me. We are almost 700 in that SARS cell with no roof. We were there for nine months going through various forms of torture,” he said.
While in the SARS custody, Adesina said he saw people tortured till they gave their last breath. “Three weeks after our arrest, they shot Femi Olaniyan. He died right there in their office,” Adeshina said.
Adeshina said he was accused of armed robbery, a crime he didn’t commit. “I didn’t even know most of the people they paired me with as casemates, they just grouped us to fit their narrative,” he said.
Adeshina was then arraigned in court and wasn’t allowed to speak in court, till he was sent to Kirikiri Maximum Prison.
“We were remanded in Kirikiri Maximum Prison after a brief appearance at the Magistrate Court in Ikeja. I told the Magistrate I wasn’t a thief and didn’t know the other suspects, but she told me to put my hand down. That was the last time I saw a courtroom,” he said.
Forty-eight-year-old, Moses Ayodele, a trailer mechanic from Ilesha, Osun State, was arrested in June 2008. Like Adeshina, Ayodele said SARS broke into his home at about 4 am while he was in bed naked with his wife. He said the SARS officials cut the electric wire in his room and used it to handcuff him. “They came to my house at 4 am, looking for someone named Femi; they tied me with cables and took me to their vehicle. When we got to the SARS office, they tortured me endlessly,” Ayodele said.
Ayodele recalled how he was hanged by his neck with a paint bucket tied to him, and beaten severally. “They did this to me several times,” he said, his voice trembling. “They forced me to sign a document they called ‘red biro, which I later discovered was a death warrant.”
He narrated that on March 23, 2009, he and other suspects were taken to the Ikeja Magistrate Court, a day after he, alongside three others, Kazeem, Jimoh and Sikiru Taiwo, were asked to sign ‘red biro’.
Ayodele recounted that survival meant unimaginable sacrifices, like eating human faeces. “We ate faeces to stay alive inside Lagos SARS cell.
“We only drink garri, once a month if a rich detainee buys garri and we join him to drink. We drank water from other people’s bath buckets and watched fellow inmates die of starvation and disease. I contracted tuberculosis, and almost died,” Ayodele said.
He said that his mother, who fought tirelessly for his release, passed away before he regained his freedom.
Silas Effiong was 23 years old when he was arrested during a stop and search operation, on August 21, 2021, in Ajegunle, Lagos. He was found with an unlicensed firearm, a decision he now admits was borne out of fear and a misguided sense of self-protection.
“I wasn’t carrying the gun to harm or rob anyone,” Effiong said, his voice heavy with regret. “It was for self-defence. I was a cultist back then, and I carried it because I wanted protection. But when they arrested me, everything changed,” he said.
He was taken to the State Criminal Investigation Department at Panti Yaba. At Panti, Effiong regretted that was subjected to severe torture aimed at extracting a confession from him.
“They beat me with cutlass and hung me upside down, with my hands and legs cuffed,” he said, his voice trembling as he recounted the experience. “Blood rushed to my head, and I felt like I was going to die; they didn’t care. They just wanted me to confess that I was an armed robber.”
The torture was unrelenting as they threatened to shoot me in the legs. They said they would cripple me if I didn’t confess. But I couldn’t say I did something I never did,” he said.
Effiong lamented that starvation followed the physical abuse he suffered.
“There was barely any food. Hunger was part of the punishment. The days felt endless, and when they brought you out for another round of beating, the light would sting your eyes because you’d been kept in darkness for so long,” he explained.
He lamented that despite his repeated pleas and physical agony, the police officers turned deaf ears to his claim of innocence but focused on extracting his confession to the crime.
“They used every cruel method possible, hanging, beating, threatening, just to break me. But I refused to confess,” Effiong said.
Till today, Effiong says still bears the pains of his time in detention.
“My knees still hurt where they hit me. My back aches constantly; the pain isn’t as bad as it was, but it is still there,” he admitted.
Despite the torment, Effiong found a path to redemption through the Better Life Empowerment program, introduced to him, while he was in prison.
“That programme saved me. It changed my mindset; today I’m studying Philosophy at the Open University and I’ve earned four certificates in two years. I’ve even become a motivational speaker,” he said.
Another victim, Josiah Lezi, a security guard from Kaduna state, shares his experience. He narrated that on January 1, 2016, while working as a security guard in Victoria Island, Lagos, he was arrested over allegations of theft. His only crime was standing as a guarantor for someone from his village.
“A man from my area asked me to help him get a security job. I brought him in good faith. I never knew he would steal copper wire and disappear,” he said.
The man he had vouched for vanished without a trace. But it was Josiah who faced the consequences. The police raided my house, claiming that we connived together, hence I should get the copper wire and the person I stood as guarantor for.
“They didn’t find any copper wire in my house because I had nothing to do with it. Yet, they arrested me, beat me and took me to Maroko Police Station where I was beaten with a baton.
“They beat me up with baton, especially my knees and elbows. I still have scars on my legs and arms up till now,” Josiah said.
Josiah explained how the torture made him so weak, that he couldn’t even write a statement. He said the statement the police wrote on his behalf was not what he told the officers.
He said the police just wanted him to accept that he connived with the person he stood guarantor for to steal the copper wire,
”When they took me to Tinubu Magistrate court, because of the torture, I couldn’t stand. I was shaking; my knees were in severe pain,” Josiah added.
After spending over three years in detention, Josiah said that the case was eventually struck out by the court as they couldn’t provide any evidence that he was the one who stole the copper wire.
“The court struck out the matter because there was nothing to prove that I was guilty. But then I had already spent three years, five months and 15 days in prison,” he added.
He said that after his release in 2019, he went back to his village in Kaduna where he was treated and didn’t return to Lagos again.
Unending systemic challenges
Over time, stakeholders have noted that issues that plague the nation’s judiciary include the absence of prosecution witnesses during trials, unavailable magistrates or judges, lack of transport means to convey inmates to court, administrative bottlenecks, retirement or transfer of judges, delayed issuance of legal advice by the Director of Public Prosecutions, stalled or missing case files. These are reasons people like Moses Abiodun and Kazeem Adeshina remain in custody for as long as 16 years without trial, despite clear directives from the Director of Public Prosecution for their case files to be transferred. As a way out, Abraham calls for the activation of monitoring committees: committees established under Section 469 of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act (2015) and Section 375 of the ACJL Lagos State to proactively audit correctional facilities and work closely with NGOs to address these challenges. He also supports the need for the State Attorney General to set up special legal panels possibly including retired magistrates and judges, to expedite legal advice and reduce the backlog of cases. He also advocates that Federal and State Governments should actively partner with Non- governmental organisations to provide legal aid and decongest correctional facilities, as successfully done during Chief Olusegun Obasanjo’s administration.
The Country Director of Avocats Sans Frontières France (ASF France) Nigeria, Mrs Angela Uzoma-Iwuchukwu identified a lack of accountability as the primary reason torture remains widespread among Nigeria’s security and law enforcement agencies.
Uzoma-Iwuchukwu emphasised that despite the existence of the Anti-Torture Act and constitutional protections against inhumane treatment, these laws remain largely unimplemented.
“It’s one thing to have a law, but it’s another to ensure it is enforced. The lack of accountability means officers continue to engage in torture without fear of consequences,” she stated.
Two civil society groups, Avocats Sans Frontières France and Access to Justice, who are advocates of human rights, lamented that its lack of implementation of the existing laws of torture and impunity are reasons for continued torture.
Founder of Zarephath Aid, Ben Abraham emphasised that the increasing number of pre-trial inmates in Nigeria’s correctional facilities was worrisome as about 80 per cent of inmates, who are awaiting trial, are trapped in a cycle of administrative inefficiencies and systemic failures.
Who enforces the law?
The Anti-Torture Act passed in 2017, criminalises torture and stipulates severe consequences for perpetrators. Section 34 of Nigeria’s Constitution also prohibits torture and inhuman treatment. Yet, these provisions exist mostly on paper.
According to Uzoma-Iwuchukwu, there has been “zero implementation” of the Anti-Torture Act. She explained that even among law enforcement agencies, knowledge of the law remains alarmingly low. Many officers have never read the Act, nor do they have copies of it.
“Training is critical,” she says. “You can’t enforce a law people don’t even know exists.”
She noted that impunity has become entrenched within the justice system, where human rights violations often go unpunished and are normalised.
“If a lawyer can be subjected to torture and degrading treatment, imagine the fate of ordinary suspects who lack access to legal representation,” she added.
Another contributing factor, Uzoma-Iwuchukwu points out, is the judiciary’s passive stance. Suspects with visible bruises often appear in court without judges questioning their condition or demanding investigations.
“The judiciary must play its role,” she insists. “If a suspect shows up in court with clear signs of abuse, judges need to ask questions and ensure investigations are carried out.”
Uzoma-Iwuchukwu highlighted key factors contributing to the persistence of torture in Nigeria, such as lack of accountability, non-implementation of laws, and lack of awareness by law enforcement officers themselves.
She urged the Attorney General of the Federation to take decisive action, including prosecuting officers responsible for torture.
Uzoma-Iwuchukwu also stressed the role of the media in holding authorities accountable. “Journalists must consistently demand updates on high-profile cases of torture and ensure these issues remain in public discourse,” she said.
Furthermore, she called for increased awareness campaigns, targeting both law enforcement personnel and the general public.
She also pointed to the National Committee Against Torture and the recently designated National Preventive Mechanism under the National Human Rights Commission as potential tools to curb abuse—if fully functional and given the authority to act.
Uzoma-Iwuchukwu said, “Each time Nigeria goes before an international body, it tries to sell the narrative that it does not condone torture. But this is very different from what was done in practice.”
She concluded by urging the Nigerian government to align its actions with its international commitments, ensuring that mechanisms against torture are not only established but also actively enforced.
Without accountability, she warned, the cycle of impunity will persist, and torture will remain a stain on Nigeria’s justice system.
The Convener of Access to Justice, Mr Joseph Otteh, stated that the issue isn’t just the horrifying stories from detention facilities, but also the deafening silence from those in power.
“The increasing number of cases of persons dying in custody after presumably being subjected to torture or other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment is very troubling, and the silence of government over the trend is no less so,” Otteh said.
He noted government’s silence is more sinister, for it emboldens more and more would-be perpetrators of torture to engage in it.
According to him, Nigeria’s history with the use of torture is a long and distressful one and the ENDSARS# inquiries and findings attest to this.
“Some criminal justice legislations, such as the Administration of Criminal Justice Act 2015, and similar state legislations try to mitigate the problem by requiring Chief Magistrates to visit places of detention every month, and this has helped, alongside many other interventions, including the strengthening of internal systems of police accountability, at least anecdotally, to bring about a reduction in the incidence of torture and deaths in police custody.
“Within the police force, we’ve seen some anecdotal improvements due to these interventions,” Otteh acknowledged. “But the military is a different proposition altogether.”
Otteh adds, “The recent consecutive deaths of Okuama Community leaders in military custody show that impunity still runs deep in military establishments and needs to be fought, Remember that less than a decade ago, Amnesty International had said that Nigeria’s military committed countless acts of torture; hundreds, if not thousands, of Nigerians have become victims of enforced disappearance; and at least 7,000 people have died in military detention as a result of starvation, extreme overcrowding and denial of medical assistance.”
The senior lawyer stressed that the government has a duty, under several international and national treaties and laws to fight impunity and bring torturers to account, and it is its failure to do so that accounts for the rise in the number of persons losing their lives unnecessarily as a result of the willful and capricious acts of State agents who exercise arbitrary violence against them.
Also, the National Convener of a group, known as Bola Ahmed Tinubu lawyers, Mrs. Abibat Bankole-Apena, said that it is unacceptable and it is unlawful for the police or any security agency to continue to torture people they are investigating for an alleged crime.
“It is illegal; it is against the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. It is against the fundamental rights under the African Charter of People’s Rights and all charters which talk about the rights and dignity of human persons,” Bankole-Apena said.
She further stated that nobody should, under any condition, be tortured, particularly when cases are still being investigated.
She decried that officers hide under the guise of investigating to torture innocent citizens.
“How do you expect someone who has been poured hot water or who has been hit with heavy metal, to tell the truth? The person will just tell you what you need to hear so that the torture can stop.
“So, torture is not a way of getting the truth out of any witness. It is not and it will never be. The law has stated clearly that it is against the integrity of the human person.
“It is against the dignity of the human person and it should not be condoned under any circumstances. I am looking at the prevalence of the issue among citizens and now spreading to lawyers.
“I think that for the security agencies to reclaim confidence in the common man, they need to weed out the bad eggs within them.
“They need to weed them out. They need to replace them. They need to punish them so that they can send a signal to others that this conduct is unacceptable,” she said.
She calls for an internal cleansing in the security set-up even for laws to be implemented.
”No matter how much the public says, the NGO says, lawyers say, whoever is saying, the media says, it takes the security outfit themselves to take it upon themselves to weed out their bad eggs. And to retrain, train and retrain the officers to the legally acceptable modes of operation.
“That is when we will see a change. It is because maybe past leaders of the security outfits have not taken the discipline of the officers seriously. That is why these issues are becoming very prevalent.
“If you compare Nigerian police to the Nigerian army, you will see a very wide difference. You will hardly see officers of the Nigerian army misbehaving anywhere, because they know that when they do, there are very dire consequences.
“The top officers do not take misdemeanour by officers, by junior officers lightly. That is the level of discipline in the army. So why can’t we reciprocate that in the police? With the police, the solution has to start from the head. The elders will say, that when a fish wants to get rotten, the rottenness starts from the head.
“So if we want a change, the head of the Nigerian police, those top officers have a lot of work to do,” she said.
A psychologist Dr Addah Tamuno-Opubo, who spoke about the psychological effect torture has on individuals, said that often times torture comes unannounced.
He stated that torture is not too far from trauma or let me put it this way. Because it comes sometimes as a result of what you do not know or even at times as a result of what you know.
Tamuno-Opubo added that if it comes as a result of what you do not know of course it’s going to be a great shock to the individual, and even when an individual has committed a crime and torture is coming, the person does not know the extent of the torture,
He stressed that, that’s why even when then mind is prepared that ok I know that I will be beaten, because you don’t know the extent and the person is beaten more than expected it still turns out to be a shock to the individual.
According to him, survivors of torture often experience a range of acute psychological reactions which includes shock and disbelieve. At some point there is this feelings of numb or disconnected from reality. There is this thing about living in denial.
“That’s why I said there is this feeling of numbness or disconnected from reality. The next is intense fear of course because of how well one has been beaten, even if a female officer walks pass you, there is this fear even when the person does not come to harm you .
“Or even if it’s a civilian who walks pass you, there is this fear that they are coming to hurt you. There is this intense fear it comes with because of the highten sense of danger and vonuaribility.
“Another one is anger or rage. The individual who has been tortured directs this anger to the perpetrator or the situation, that how you will hear someone say, “If I catch this army man after now because he has been beaten by an army man. So there is that feeling of anger with transfer aggression to anybody who is a uniform man.
“Another thing is the feelings of helplessness, loss of control over life and environment so they feel helpless at that moment. Then hyper-vigilance, the individual is constantly on the edge, looking out for anything that could cause him or her pain.”
He further stated that the last under this is what we call dissociation, here the individual feels detached from his or her body or surroundings and they do these things as a way to cope with unbearable pain or fear. So they just detach themselves from the environment and the pains they are feeling.
“They have cognitive symptoms, there is this intrusive memories flash backs , confusion or memory problems, that this torture comes with, that’s why I tagged it cognitive symptoms.
“Another one is emotional symptoms, if care is not taken the individual could fall into anxiety, depression, the person also could be irritable, there is also emotional numbness or mood swings, also plays out.
“The ones that we can see from the individual is called the behavioural syndromes, there is social withdrawal, avoidance of triggers, outburst of anger or self distructive behaviours, it also involves self harms, the individual deliberately engages self in those things that could actually be pointing towards suicide or suicidal in nature, those are behavioral symptoms.
“For the physical symptoms, we have insomnia, headache, body aches, at some point the individual could be throwing up, having problem with the gastric intestinal or the individual could be fatigue then lastly the individual also comes up with survival strategies.
“Display of hyper dependence, what I mean by hyper dependence is when you hear people saying that I have never dependent on anybody before, that is an example of hyper independence because of how I have suffered, I have asked from different people I never got any help, to that extent I am going to dependent on any person excerpt on myself.
Severe trauma includes anxiety, at one end and at the other end there is also depression and there is also what we call psychosomatic disorder.
It talks about physical symptoms without a clear medical cause. Psychosomatic disorders is a physical symptoms but it does not have a biological cause. The individual also goes into substance abuse as a way of coping, it could alcohol or drugs they also suffer identity issues.
“Here I’m trying to talk about the individual suffers from fragmented loss of self or loss of personal identity, then to the very serious cases there is chronic post traumatic stress disorder, we also have complex trauma because the individual possibily could have suffered at different points, the individual would have been traumatised and because trauma keeps building in the individual, it turns out to be complex or chronic traumatic disorder.
“Post traumatic stress disorder, focuses on the immediate aftermat of trauma, characterise by specific symptoms like flash backs, avoidance and hyper arousal. While complex trauma, for example l saw a client who was molested at age six and at age 12 her parents broke up and she atrated living with one of her sisters who was married and the husband of her sister assaulted her sexually , penetration was confirmed, and while she was still struggling with that she gathered money ran to Lagos and in Lagos, she managing to put herself together, wrote Jamb and gained admission.
“Unfortunately for her the first week she resumed school, she was raped in school. So because of this too many traumatic experiences, when you put it together, we call it complex post traumatic stress disorder. So it is quite different from just the post traumatic stress disorder because the post traumatic stress disorder could be just one case of trauma.
But once you have this traumatic experiences playing out at different point of the developmental phases of these individuals we tag it as complex post traumatic stress disorder. And of cause there is a major difference between this two like I have mentioned, especially for the complex trauma, there is difficulty with emotional regulations, there is negative self concept or feelings of shame and guilt, there is challenges in forming healthy relationships, survivors of severe torture often displays symptoms of both post traumatic stress disorder and complex trauma making treatment complex and multifaceted.
“Importantly when we have survivors, the first thing we try to build is sense of support. First the therapist makes or creates a condusive environment, for the survivor so that the survivor starts trusting the therapist then the next is support system, we begin to look out for family members who will be supportive.
Then, everything we are doing in the place of therapy is, we call it resilience building. So, we begin to teach, we begin to teach the client resilience and, of course, what is resilience? It is the intrinsic ability to adapt and cope with adversity. That is, you are trying to bring the client or the individual back to how they were before the traumatic experience.
