The National Human Rights Commission in Nigeria has announced plans to develop guidelines for the improvement of detention facilities in police stations across the country.
The Executive Secretary of the commission, Professor Ben Angwe, announced the plan while presenting an audit report of its 2013 Police Station Visitation in Abuja on Tuesday.
He decried cases of human rights abuses in many detention facilities, especially police stations.
Professor Angwe promised that the findings of the report would be used to address issues of human rights abuses in police detention facilities.
The visitation to police stations was conducted in line with the national Human Rights Commission’s mandate to inspect prisons, police cells and other detention facilities to ascertain the condition of the facilities.
“We will develop guidelines that will improve the conditions of detention facilities in Police stations across the country and also develop Human rights training for the police based on the areas of challenges that had been identified,” he said.
The Executive secretary of the commission admitted that more work needed to be done to stop human rights abuses in detention facilities.
A representatives of Justice for All and Cleen Foundation, Robim Campbell, however, commended the Nigeria Police Force for its improved detention facilities.
The chairman of the National Committee Against Torture, Dr Sam Ameh, appealed to Nigerians whose rights were abused to report such cases to the committee.
“If there is a case of torture there is now an avenue for Nigerians to report. Our position is like a semi-judicial organisation. once we get a report, we will investigate and call the police to also investigate to determine who was wrong and recommend prosecution,” he said.
The visitation exercise covered 369 police stations across the six geo-political zones and out of the police stations visited, only 10 had good detention facilities.
