Japheth Njoku: When a Death in Police Custody Becomes a Test of the Rule of Law

This article by Okechukwu Nwanguma discusses Japheth Njoku, a 32-year-old man, who died in Police custody, after weeks of detention over an ordinarily bailable allegation of stealing. A Coroner’s Court has now found that the conditions and length of his detention contributed to the deterioration of his health and his eventual death, while also identifying practices of extortion, intimidation and treatment, inconsistent with the rights of detainees. Urgent questions about what happens to citizens behind the walls of Police detention facilities, the duty of the State once it deprives a person of liberty, and the practical obstacles families face in seeking truth and accountability, are raised in this article

**Background **

Japheth Njoku entered Police custody alive. He did not leave alive.

He was 32 years old when he died, after weeks in detention at the Anti-Kidnapping Unit of the Imo State Police Command, popularly known as Tiger Base, Owerri.

For his family, the tragedy did not end with his death. They had to begin another struggle: to establish how he died, secure an autopsy, protect potential witnesses, and overcome repeated obstacles placed in the path of a judicial inquiry.

More than a year later, the Chief Magistrate’s Court in Owerri, sitting as Coroner, has delivered findings that deserve national attention. The importance of the decision goes far beyond Japheth Njoku. It raises fundamental questions about what happens when citizens disappear behind the walls of Police detention facilities, and the enormous difficulties families face when they try to hold the State accountable.

**Coroner’s Findings **

According to reports of the Coroner’s findings, Njoku was detained for approximately six weeks, over an allegation of stealing – an ordinarily bailable offence.

The Coroner found that money was demanded in connection with his release and rejected attempts to justify his continued detention, by subsequently portraying him as a terrorist.

The court reportedly found conditions at Tiger Base inconsistent with the rights of detainees to dignity, liberty, legal representation and bail, and identified practices involving torture, intimidation and extortion.

Although the medical evidence reportedly identified meningitis, bronchial pneumonia and hypertensive heart disease among the causes of death, the Coroner made an extremely important finding: the conditions under which Njoku was detained and the length of his detention, contributed to the deterioration of his health and eventual death. That distinction matters.

A person does not have to die directly from a Police bullet or a blow from an officer, before the State can bear responsibility for a death in custody. Once the State deprives a person of liberty, it assumes an enhanced duty to protect that person’s life, health and physical integrity.

Police custody must never become a place, where illness is ignored until it becomes fatal.

Perhaps, one of the most troubling aspects of the Njoku case, is what happened after his death.

On June 11, 2025, the Coroner ordered an autopsy, and provided for an independent pathologist nominated by the family to observe the examination. The court also summoned

Police officers and other material witnesses.

What should have been a straightforward process became a prolonged struggle

The Njoku family’s Lawyer, Dr Christian C. Nwadigo, repeatedly raised concerns about Police conduct surrounding the implementation of the Coroner’s orders. RULAAC and the People’s Rights Organisation, subsequently petitioned the Police Service Commission alleging repeated failures to make Njoku’s body available for scheduled autopsies, including appointments on October 28 and October 30, 2025, notwithstanding repeated extensions granted by the court.

The concerns were not confined to civil society allegations

Amnesty International subsequently reported that Tiger Base officials, failed on three occasions to appear for the court-ordered examination, even when court-appointed pathologists were present.

This aspect of the case, deserves an investigation of its own.

**Lack of Accountability and Intimidation of Potential Witnesses **

When a person dies in State custody, preservation of the body, medical examination, documentation and independent investigation are not favours to the deceased’s family. They are indispensable safeguards against impunity.

If officials implicated in a custodial death can delay or obstruct the very procedures designed to establish how that person died, the integrity of the entire accountability system is threatened.

There was another disturbing development. During the inquest, concerns emerged that persons who had been detained alongside Njoku and who could potentially provide evidence about what happened inside Tiger Base, were themselves facing fresh Police attention.

RULAAC raised concerns about reports of renewed investigations, detention and threats of prosecution against potential witnesses. The family and its Lawyer, also complained about alleged intimidation.

These allegations should not simply disappear, now that the Coroner has concluded the inquest.

The Inspector-General of Police and Police Service Commission should establish whether any Police officer attempted to frustrate the autopsy, intimidate witnesses, interfere with evidence or otherwise impede the administration of justice.

Accountability for a death in custody includes accountability for attempts to conceal, distort or obstruct the truth about that death.

**Coroner’s Recommendations **

The Coroner reportedly recommended the prosecution of Inspector Barnabas and ACP Oladimeji Odeyeyiwa (the Tiger Base Commander), for alleged extortion and corruption. The court also recommended compensation for Njoku’s family, payment of burial expenses, improved training, CCTV coverage of detention facilities, and the transfer of officers serving at the Anti-Kidnapping Unit.

These recommendations must not join the long list of official findings, that disappear into Government files.

**Other Steps to be Taken **

The Attorney-General of Imo State should promptly review the complete record of proceedings, and determine all offences disclosed by the evidence. That review should not necessarily stop at extortion and corruption.

Nigeria has an Anti-Torture Act. If evidence before the inquest discloses torture or other criminal conduct, the appropriate investigative and prosecutorial authorities have a duty to follow the evidence wherever it leads.

The Police Service Commission must similarly determine whether disciplinary offences were committed, including in relation to the prolonged detention, demands for money, treatment of the detainee, and alleged attempts to obstruct the autopsy and intimidate witnesses.

There is, however, a danger in reducing this case to two Police officers.

For years, victims, families, Lawyers, journalists and human rights organisations have raised allegations concerning Tiger Base: prolonged detention, torture, extortion, denial of access to Lawyers and relatives, disappearances and deaths in custody.

These allegations require an institutional response

The Coroner’s reported recommendation that officers serving in the unit be transferred, should itself cause the Police authorities to ask a much bigger question: what is happening inside Tiger Base?

An independent audit should examine custody registers, deaths in custody, complaints of disappearance, detention periods, bail practices, access to Lawyers and relatives, medical treatment of detainees, allegations of torture and extortion, CCTV records and previous complaints against personnel of the unit.

This should not be another internal investigation, in which the institution investigates itself behind closed doors. Credible oversight requires independence.

The significance of the Njoku findings becomes even greater, when viewed against other allegations concerning the same facility.

In ***Onuocha Johnbosco v Commissioner of Police & 3 Ors (Suit No. HOW/161M/2025), ***another case arising from alleged detention at Tiger Base remains before the court, and is scheduled for hearing on October 13, 2026.

No conclusions should be drawn about a case that remains pending

But, its existence reinforces the need to examine allegations concerning Tiger Base institutionally, rather than waiting for victims and their families to fight separate, exhausting battles one after another.

When complaints repeatedly emerge from the same detention facility, accountability cannot consist merely of investigating each incident in isolation.

Police reform is ultimately about what happens inside the cell

Nigeria has debated Police reform, for decades.

We have enacted the Police Act 2020. We have an Anti-Torture Act. We have constitutional guarantees of dignity and personal liberty. We have judicial decisions, affirming the rights of suspects. We have Police oversight institutions.

Yet, the true measure of Police reform is not the number of laws enacted or committees inaugurated. It is what happens, when a poor or powerless Nigerian is arrested.

– Is the arrest recorded?

– Is the family informed?

– Can the detainee contact a Lawyer?

– Is bail genuinely free?

– Is the suspect brought before a court, within the constitutionally prescribed period?

– Can an officer demand money and keep someone locked up, when relatives cannot pay?

– Can a detainee obtain medical treatment?

– And, if that detainee dies, can the family discover the truth without fighting the Police for months?

These are the real tests of Police reform.

The Coroner’s findings offer an opportunity, to demonstrate that accountability mechanisms can still work. But, a judgement or recommendation, is only the beginning.

The officers against whom prosecution has been recommended, must receive due process. Allegations must be proved, in accordance with law. That is precisely the protection the rule of law demands, for everyone.

The same rule of law, however, demands justice for the dead.

Japheth Njoku’s family deserves the truth, accountability and adequate reparation. The public deserves assurance that, Police detention facilities are not spaces beyond constitutional scrutiny.

And, Police officers who perform their duties professionally also have an interest in ensuring that torture, extortion and unlawful detention are not tolerated within their institution.

Japheth entered police custody alive

The State had a duty to protect him, while exercising complete control over his liberty.

He died in that custody

His family then spent months, struggling to establish what happened to him.

The Coroner has now spoken.

The real test begins with what the authorities do next.

Okechukwu Nwanguma, Executive Director of the Rule of Law and Accountability Advocacy Centre (RULAAC)

The SAN Title Needs Reform: Time for an Honorary Track

Introduction

Congratulations to the 68 newly sworn in Senior Advocates of Nigeria (SAN). It remains a distinct badge of honour, but in the same vein, it is in many respects beginning to lose its meaning, and in need of reform.

Every year, the Legal Practitioners Privileges Committee (LPPC) releases a list of new Senior Advocates of Nigeria. There is celebration, and then, silence.

For a rank that is supposed to represent the pinnacle of legal excellence in Nigeria, that silence is revealing. Outside the courts, few Nigerians can tell you why a particular Lawyer was made a SAN. Few young Lawyers can point to the cases or contributions, that earned that Silk.

We have inherited a great tradition from the English Bar — the King’s Counsel. But, while the UK has reformed its Silk system to reflect modern legal practice, Nigeria has allowed ours to stagnate, inflate, and exclude. It is time to reform.

The Original Purpose has Been Lost

When the SAN rank was introduced in 1975, the idea was simple: to identify and honour advocates of exceptional ability and excellence in advocacy.

Today, the application of the Legal Practitioners Act and the LPPC Guidelines have become heavily litigation-centric and, increasingly, a numbers game. Applicants must show dozens of contested cases from the High Court to the Supreme Court, with a few reported judgements.

On paper, that is rigorous. In practice, it rewards volume over significance, filing over jurisprudence.

This raises an uncomfortable but necessary question: For the 57 lawyers elevated in July 2025 and the 68 elevated this year, what cases of legal significance did they argue that developed Nigerian law? What principle did they establish at the Supreme Court? What area of law did they shape?

The public does not know, because the LPPC does not tell us. Unlike the UK, where KC appointments are accompanied by citations of notable cases and judicial feedback, our system publishes only names. We are told they qualified, but we are not shown how.

When excellence is not visible and verifiable, seniority, longevity and access, inevitably begin to replace brilliance as the metric.

The Excluded Majority: Where Is the Solicitor?

The second and more serious flaw, is who the system excludes.

Modern legal practice in Nigeria, is no longer just advocacy in open court. It is corporate finance, energy transactions, technology law, arbitration, legal aid, public interest litigation, law reform, and institution building.

Some of the most consequential Lawyers in this country, have never built their careers around contested litigation. They are:

• The Solicitors who structured the transactions that power our economy and created jobs for hundreds of other Lawyers;

• The Academics whose works are cited by the Supreme Court;

• The Public Interest Lawyers who have spent decades either defending the indigent and expanding the frontiers of human rights and writing/highlighting topical issues of interest.

• The Law Officers and Attorney-Generals whose advice shaped policy and legislation.

For these Lawyers, there is no credible path to our profession’s highest honour. Our message to them is clear: no matter how much you contribute to law and society, you will never be a SAN. Surely that cannot be right.

The Shrinking Academic Silk

Perhaps, the clearest sign of how the courtroom Bar has closed ranks, is what has happened to the academic route. There was a period when the LPPC would confer the academic SAN on as many as 8 to 10 Professors/Academics in a year — Scholars whose books and articles were actually cited in court. After sustained complaints from leading courtroom Silks that Academics were “largely unknown” and that their works were “neither well-known nor major sources of reference”, the LPPC quietly restricted the Academic category to just one slot per year.

Last Legal Year is illustrative: out of 68 new SANs sworn in by Chief Justice Kudirat Kekere-Ekun, 67 were advocates and only one — Professor Nnamdi Onyeka Obiaraeri — made it on the academic track. The message is unmistakable: The Courtroom Silk complained that Academic Silks were competing with them for prestige, and the system responded by virtually shutting the academic door.

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Lessons From the UK

The United Kingdom faced this same crisis, and acted. In 2007, it introduced Honorary King’s Counsel — a distinct honour for those who have made an exceptional contribution to the law outside of courtroom advocacy. Academics, Solicitors, law reformers, and pro bono champions, are now recognised without diluting the standard for litigation Silks.

The result is that, the KC system is both more prestigious and more inclusive. It reflects what the legal profession actually is.

Nigeria should not be afraid to do the same.

Three-Point Reform Agenda

To restore credibility and fairness to the rank the following is proposed:

1. Create Two Tracks: Litigation SAN and Honorary SAN

Retain SAN for proven, exceptional courtroom advocacy. Introduce Honorary SAN for Solicitors, Academics, Reformers and Public Service Lawyers. The Honorary rank should carry the same honour and post-nominal recognition.

2. Publish Citations and Make Excellence Accountable

For every new conferment, the LPPC should publish a brief citation — three leading cases argued, or three major contributions made. Let the Bar and the public see why this person is worthy. Let young Lawyers learn from it. Prestige must be accountable, if it is to be respected.

3. Cap Numbers and Elevate Standards

When we appoint 125 new SANs in just over a year, we devalue the Silk. Scarcity creates value. Nigeria must make the rank rarer, more rigorous, and more meaningful. Quality must triumph over.

**Conclusion **

The law is a profession of advocates and solicitors, litigators and advisers, courtroom orators and quiet draftsmen. Our highest honour should reflect that whole profession, not just one part of it.

As it stands, the SAN rank tells a majority of our best Lawyers, that they will never be seen at the top. It tells young Lawyers that, only one type of practice matters.

That is bad for morale, bad for mentorship, and ultimately, bad for justice.

Reforming the Silk is not about pulling anyone down. It is about lifting the standard up, and lifting the profession with it. This ultimately, will be for the greater good of us all.