THE NIGERIAN POLICE ACT 2020 AND HUMAN SECURITY IN NIGERIA'S SOUTHEAST GEOPOLITICAL ZONE

Abstract

Following the youth-led 2020 #ENDSARS protest demanding the disbandment of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) and broader reform of the police, the Nigerian government enacted a new Police Act (2020) to address the challenges of police brutality in Nigeria. Section 19 of the Act states that the Inspector General of Police should ensure that all police officer undergo training despite the existence of numerous police training institutions, inadequate or poor training largely persists in these institutions. This has been implicated in corruption and abuse of human rights by police officers. This study examines the impact of Police Act (2020) on the capacity of Police Officers for security provisioning in Nigeria's Southeast zone. The specific objective is to unravel how inadequate training programmes for police officers lead to professional misconduct that undermine human security in the Southeast. It adopts the human security theory propounded by Mahbub ul Haq as a framework of analysis. Mixed method research design guides the collection of data involving documentary and survey methods. It gathers primary data through key informant interview and questionnaire and subjected to qualitative descriptive analysis. The findings show how insufficient training programs for police officers have undermined human security in Southeast Nigeria. It recommends, among others, the overall of training curricula and packages in police institutions in accordance with international standards and best practices and the implementation of a robust accountability mechanism to track and redress abuse of human rights by police officers in line with the rule of law.