Ethical Issues and Security Practice in Nigeria: The Aftermath of #End SARS and the Nigerian Police Force Reform Agenda

Abstract

The personnel of official law enforcement agencies such as the Nigeria police have authorities and responsibilities that other public personnel do not. These are important powers that limit civil liberties, such as stopping, searching, asking for identification, confiscation, apprehending, using force, and interrogation. The performance of these duties has significant effects on people’s quality of life, and especially on civil liberties and social life. Taking into account the degree of discretion allowed to security personnel to enforce the law, it becomes clear that there is a need for a code of professional ethics, in addition to existing legislation, in order to increase the quality of the service they provide. The paper therefore, looks at the ethical practice of the security personnel using Nigeria police Force as a case study. To understand the unruly properly, the following questions were considered; what are police ethics,’ ‘to which security personnel do police ethics apply, ‘why is a code of ethics necessary to security personnel’ and how can will inject ethical conduct into security practice in Nigeria. The sources of ethical rules and their relation to police ethics, social morality and justice were also considered. The relationship between police ethics and professionalism was addressed. On the basis of empirical evidence from the field, the paper revealed cases of indiscipline and wrong doings among security personnel like; arrogance, torture, harassment, killings, intimidation, rape, extra judicial killings to mention but few. Emphasis was therefore, made on the necessity of total compliance with the code of ethics by all security personnel currently active in the field of internal security services in Nigeria.