Says law repealed in 1989
Gboyega Akinsanmi
A human rights lawyer, Mr. Femi Falana, on Tuesday asked the Nigeria Police to desist from arresting and prosecuting citizens for loitering and wandering, saying it was a violation of fundamental human rights to arrest or prosecute any citizen for such offences.
Falana, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), said vagrancy law, which was introduced to Nigeria under the British colonial regime, had been repealed in 1989 under the military junta of Gen. Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida after a sustained campaign by human rights activists.
He conveyed his grievance in a letter he addressed to the Inspector-General of Police, Mr. Ibrahim Idris, yesterday, lamenting that officers of the Nigeria Police “are still arresting and prosecuting citizens for loitering and wandering after the vagrancy law was abolished.”
According to him, the anti- people law was retained for the purpose of harassing and intimidating poor people by the indigenous ruling class who took over power from the alien administrators in 1960.
In what he described as a display of class bias, Falana said whenever rich people “were found on the street taking a walk it was said that they were exercising their fundamental right to freedom of movement.
“But whenever the poor exercise such fundamental right to freedom of movement they were usually arrested by the police who accused them of wandering or loitering,” the human rights lawyer said.
In a one-page letter he personally signed, Falana noted that the Babangida junta promulgated the Minor Offences (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act (CAP M16) Laws of the Federation of Nigeria 2004, which automatically abolished the vagrancy law in the criminal and penal codes.
He cited section 1 of the Act, which stipulates that a person “shall not be accused of or charged with the offence of wandering (by whatever name called); or any other offence by reason only of his being found wandering (by whatever name called).
“Accordingly, any person accused of or charged with such offence shall be released or discharged, as the case may be, forthwith. A person who is accused of a simple offence shall not, by reason only of being accused of such offence, be detained in police or prison custody.”
Despite the abolition of the offence of wandering throughout the country, Falana lamented that the Nigeria Police had engaged in the indiscriminate arrest and prosecution of many poor people for loitering.
Under the pretext of ridding the Federal Capital Territory of criminals and other undesirable elements, he noted that officers of the Nigeria Police recently arrested scores of young people around Asokoro and other high brow areas in Abuja.
He added that the suspects “were illegally prosecuted, convicted and jailed by magistrates based on the allegation that they have no means of livelihood. The explanation of some of convicts that they had recently lost jobs was not taken into consideration by the trial Magistrates.”
He disclosed that he had decided “to challenge such brazen violation of the fundamental right to personal liberty and fair hearing of those who have been illegally tried and convicted under the repealed vagrancy law in the Federal Capital Territory.
“We hereby request you to use your good offices to direct all police commands in the country to desist from further arresting and prosecuting poor citizens for loitering or wandering.
“If you fail to accede to our request within one week of the receipt of this letter, we shall pray the Federal High Court to compel the Nigeria Police Force to comply with the Minor Offences (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act forthwith.”
