STOP THE POLICE KILLINGS, UN EXPERT TELLS NIGERIA

Nigeria must act to stop police escaping with the murder of innocent people by claiming their victims were armed robbers, the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, Philip Alston, said.
Alston said such incidents were common in Africa's most populous country, noting the case of policemen who killed six traders in the streets of the capital Abuja in June and later said the six were armed robbers who opened fire first.
"That is pretty representative of what happens -- innocent or at least not assuredly guilty individuals being disposed of by police," said Alston.
Police also frequently lock up innocent people, labelling them armed robbers, because they refuse to bribe or otherwise cross a policeman, Alston said at the end of a two-week fact-finding mission.
He said police picked up these habits during decades of military dictatorship, and not enough has been done to change the situation since the return to civilian rule in 1999.
But he said no reliable figures were available on police killings or complaints about police misconduct, which "raises issues because a government's responsibility is to know what's going on."