State must act to end extra-judicial killings

The establishment of the Independent Police oversight Authority through an Act of parliament in 2011 has done little in redeeming the image of the police. While IPOA has the mandate of checking the excesses of police officers either individually or as a service, the increase in police extra-judicial killings is apparent to all.

Similarly, the National Police Service Commission has fallen flat on its face as far as carrying out its mandate; which is basically to recruit and train a disciplined service that would, as its name suggests, offer service to the taxpayers.

There are revelations that at least 122 people have lost their lives at the hands of trigger-happy police officers in the space of only eight months. But given the fear that citizens have of the police, it is possible the number is higher since some families, out of coercion, choose to maintain silence.

So far, IPOA has received reports of 62 killings of members of the public by police officers, yet the cruelty has spread to a point of officers turning their guns on colleagues. The last one year and a half have seen 23 policemen being killed by colleagues and while this should have galvanised authorities into action, it has not.

A statement from police headquarters yesterday disputing the actual number of people killed by police officers was an admission that indeed, the police have been engaged in extra-judicial killings. This came as a shock because human beings cannot simply be treated as a statistic.

Whether it is a single individual or a thousand who die in the hands of the police is immaterial. The question is why the police should kill people when there are clear mechanisms for apprehending and bringing lawbreakers to book.