Before Mr E. Edgar was posted to Lagos as the Commissioner of police, the Ikorodu area of Lagos was under the scourge of the deadly Badoo cult gang, which killed without impunity. Ikorodu residents could not sleep with two eyes closed.
With the arrival of Edgar as the CP and having studied the situation, he knew this was not a situation the police alone could contain. A security meeting was convened by the then Governor, Akinwunmi Ambode and decision was made to incite OPC into the operation which was specially funded by the Lagos state government. That that the key.
With the assistance of OPC, the deadly Badoo gang was decimated. Then, nobody talked about the legality of the OPC in arresting the situation. But when we want to cause mischief, we hide under a legal subterfuge. I find the perspective of the old legal icon, Chief Afe Babalola, SAN quite instructive.
Chief Afe Babalola, SAN posits:
"Citizens of Nigeria have always enjoyed a right to effect what is known as a citizens arrest where any person is found to have committed an offence before handover to the police for prosecution. In addition, private citizens also may in certain circumstances prosecute persons who have committed crimes. Thus in Part V of the Criminal Code Act S.275 which provides as follow: “it is lawful for any person who witnesses a breach of the peace to interfere to prevent the continuance or renewal of it, and to use such force as is reasonably necessary for such prevention and is reasonably proportioned to the danger to be apprehended from such continuance or renewal, and to detain any person who is committing or who is about to join in or to renew the breach of the peace for such time as may be reasonably necessary in order to give him into the custody of a peace officer or police officer…”.
A communal reading of sections S.272/273 Criminal Code will reveal that: a person may arrest a person who has committed an offence and prevent his escape.
Neither the constitution in Sections 214-216 nor the Police Act in Section 10 gives the Police an exclusive duty to secure lives and properties.
All the above support the establishment of the Amotekun which has been established to give an official teeth to the provision of the Criminal Code which allows private citizens to arrest and detain offenders and bandits and to hand them over to the police.
Given the provisions of the Criminal Code in Sections 272-275, the right of citizens to arrest any person for committing an offence is legal and may be exercised individually or
In any event, the regional community security outfit known as Amotekun cannot be set aside by oral pronouncement by the Attorney General or any other body. Only the Court of Law can declare the establishment illegal."
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