By Chinedu Agu
Distinguished members of the press, leaders of civil society, my learned colleagues at the Bar, comrades in the human-rights movement, ladies and gentlemen.
I am grateful to the Coalition Against Police Tigerbase Impunity [CAPTI] for the courage and diligence that produced this report. Today is not merely about unveiling a document; it is about confronting a painful truth that many Nigerians live with daily but are often afraid to articulate. I speak to you as a lawyer, as a former Secretary of the Nigerian Bar Association, Owerri Branch, as a human-rights activist, and more importantly, and as a victim and survivor of police impunity, qualified by lived experience to speak on this matter. What I say today is not conjecture. It is testimony.
In September 2025, I was arrested by the police. I was detained in police custody beyond the constitutionally prescribed period. I was later arraigned and remanded in prison custody for twenty-eight days by *His Worship, Obinna Njemanze,* of the Magistrate Court, Owerri. While in custody, I approached the Federal High Court sitting in Owerri for bail. My application was refused by the court, coram *Honourable Justice Chituru Joy Wigwe-Oreh,* on the ground that there was no pending charge before her upon which bail could be anchored. I recount these facts deliberately and carefully. At no point was I convicted of any offence. At no point was I found guilty by any court of competent jurisdiction. Yet, I lost my liberty. That experience places me not merely as an observer, but as one of the survivors of the high-handedness of law enforcement, a high-handedness that is too often embellished, legitimised, or permitted by systemic failures within the justice architecture.
That experience was not abstract. It was lived. And it exposed me to the grim realities of detention practices in Imo State, particularly as they relate to the operations of the Anti-Kidnapping Unit popularly known as Tigerbase.
While I was in custody, I witnessed something deeply disturbing. On a routine basis, weekly, and sometimes more frequently, Tigerbase operatives brought groups of detainees into the prison. A striking number of them had never been arraigned before any court. Many had spent prolonged periods in custody without formal charges. What was even more troubling was that a significant number of those transferred from the unit to the prison were individuals who could not afford the exorbitant sums running into millions of naira that they were allegedly demanded to pay for their release. In effect, liberty had become monetised. Freedom was no longer tied to innocence or guilt, but to financial capacity. Detention itself had become a tool of coercion and punishment for the poor.
I listened to confessions volunteered to me by fellow inmates, not in the comfort of a lawyer’s office, but in the raw vulnerability of incarceration. Men spoke of brutal beatings, of prolonged suspension, of mock executions, and of crucifixion-style torture, where limbs were stretched, tied, and suspended in positions calculated to break the human body and spirit. They spoke of threats of death, of harm to family members, and of being forced to sign statements they did not write, admitting to crimes they did not commit. These were not isolated allegations. They were recurring patterns, told with the same fear, the same exhaustion, and the same sense of abandonment.
What makes these abuses particularly alarming is that they persist in open defiance of clear provisions of the law. To properly contextualise this, permit me to quote directly from a public broadcast by the Secretary of the NBA Owerri Human Rights Committee, Ikechukwu Godwin Umah, delivered on 10 December 2025 to mark International Human Rights Day. He stated:
“Section 36 of the Administration of Criminal Justice Law of Imo State provides for the Inspection of Police cells by the Chief Magistrates once every month. During this inspection, the chief Magistrates would sit in a location as a full court and hear cases, granting bail in deserving cases and ordering the arraignment of others within a specific time frame. We would usually inspect the detention centres within the premises of the police headquarters as well as divisions within the metropolis. Usually, they would remove the detainees they do not want us to meet and present the ones they want us to see. Most of the featherweight cases would have their detainees relocated from the cells while presenting to us the very serious ones whose bail applications the Chief Magistrate would refuse to grant either for want of jurisdiction or for the severity of their cases.*_
“But guess what? No one dares enter the cells of the anti-kidnapping unit [Tigerbase Unit]. Against extant provisions of the law and without justification whatsoever, the successive officers in charge of the legal unit [OCs Legal] have succeeded in convincing the Commissioner of Police Imo State, Aboki Danjuma, that a minimum of three days’ notice was required to be given to the police before the chief Magistrate could be allowed to visit and inspect the cells. This aberration has given the police enormous opportunity to always relocate detainees of their choice ahead of the inspection. But in the case of the Anti-Kidnapping Unit, the gates of the unit are permanently locked without either entrance or exit until the exercise is over. Chief Magistrates have been locked out of the Tigerbase Unit severally.
_*”The claim by the Imo State Police Command Public Relations Officer that no detainee spent more than two days in the anti-kidnapping unit without a court order is an outright falsehood. It is, however, known that a certain Magistrate, whom I am told retired recently, was in the habit of issuing remand orders without the defendants being arraigned in his court. This has seen some detainees moved straight from the Tigerbase Unit to the prison without stepping foot in any courtroom for arraignment.”*_
That quotation is not rhetoric. It is a factual account from within the justice system itself. It confirms that the Anti-Kidnapping Unit has been deliberately insulated from judicial oversight and placed above the safeguards provided by law.
The consequences of this insulation are already manifest. In Suit *No. CC/GB/35/2025, Ugorji v. Ajurunwa,* a customary court sitting at Mmahu in Ohaji/Egbema Local Government Area of Imo State, delivered judgment in a land dispute. Instead of complying with the judgment or exercising his right of appeal, the judgment debtor employed the services of the Tigerbase Unit. The operatives arrested the judgment creditor, led the judgment debtor to the disputed land, supervised his fencing of the land, and stopped judgment creditor from burying his deceased relative on that land. This occurred despite the judgment creditor informing them that a court of competent jurisdiction had already delivered judgment in the matter. In that moment, a court judgment was rendered useless by police action. When that happens, the rule of law is no longer under threat; it has been suspended.
Let me be clear and fair. Kidnapping is a grave crime and on the rise in Imo State, and we appreciate the efforts of the Tigerbase Unit in combating it. The legitimate successes recorded by them in protecting lives and property are acknowledged. However, no operational achievement can excuse torture, extortion, illegal detention, contempt for court orders, or the systematic erosion of due process. Professional policing and respect for human rights are not competing ideals; they are inseparable obligations. When good work is used as a shield to cover unprofessionalism, corruption, and lawlessness, public trust is destroyed.
What is required is not denial, propaganda, or defensiveness, but a total and transparent overhaul of the Anti-Kidnapping Unit in Imo State; an overhaul that restores judicial oversight, enforces strict compliance with the Administration of Criminal Justice Law, sanctions erring officers, and re-centres human dignity as the foundation of security operations.
My own ordeal did not diminish my faith in the law; it deepened it. This report must not end as a press event. It must mark the beginning of accountability. For when law enforcement operates without restraint, justice becomes accidental, and freedom becomes fragile.
Thank you for listening to me. ■
● Being remarks by Chinedu Agu, Esq., on the occasion of the public presentation of the “Tiger Base Files”, a report by the Coalition Against Police Tigerbase Impunity (CAPTI, at Social Action 20 Yalinga Street, Wuse 2, Abuja, on Monday 15th December, 2025.
