Nigerian Police Force: Stop detaining innocent people for more than 48 hours

Innocent  people are being arrested and detained for more than 48 hours as against Section 35 of Nigeria's  1999 Constitution

Many people fall victims of this brutality and as responsible citizens of Nigeria, being arrested innocently and detained beyond 48 hours remain a threat to personal safety, job security and particularly, downplaying our fundamental human rights.  

My name is Jones Shola. I am a teacher by profession. On the 19th of May, 2021,at about 9:30pm, police officers from Ojo police station, Lagos. came to arrest someone for a case of two-fighting( domestic violence). One injured the other with a weapon and out of provocation, the injured picked a stone  and threw it. The stone unfortunately hit the complainant someone who was one of those separating the fight. On the arrival of the police men, they arrested only the person who threw the stone and arrested me too because I pointed their attention to the the bleeding state of the person they have arrested. They punched me 7 times out of aggression. And my jaws are dislocated.

When they took us to the police station, we were asked to remove our clothes and enter the cell "without taking down our statements". I however insisted to right my statement threatening to commit suicide in the cell if kept in the cell without my statement, but the other person was forced to enter the cell without taking his statement. His statement was taken on 24th of May 2021 which was a day to our release. They were expected to also arrest the second party involved in the fight because he injured the someone using a weapon. Surprisingly, he, came to the station that night, and gave the I.P.O a thousand naira and then went ahead to the cell and gave the inmates five hundred naira to bit up his rival. 

We were over 30 inmates in the cell. No space. No food. No adequate ventilation. No provision for treating the sick and the injured.  And more than 7 inmates claimed not to have their statements written.

What needs to happen to correct these acts of brutality is for Mr. President to introduce a department to regularly visit police stations and interview the inmates by themselves. They should not inform the police station about their visit to avoid manipulations. I suggested that because they could move the innocent inmates out of the cell to a close-by hideout. They did that as confirmed by the inmates I met there in the cell. If I win this petition, it will lead to the restoration of the lost legality, sincerity and sanity in the Nigerian Police Force. Failure to win may result in societal problems. I imagine what could have happened if I had lost my job for being absent for one week; contacted diseases; or lost opportunities due to police brutality and victimization. As a matter of fact, the director of the organisation I work for, had started working towards replacing me with another person. I was stranded in the cell because
there was no telephone on me when I was arrested and all effort to make the police officers assess my employers' website failed. If not, I could had collected the telephone number and inform them.