Nigeria’s Legal Reality: Until the Law Truly Speaks, Torture Will Remain the Norm
By Mary Nguemo Dzuamo, Innovative Lawyers Awards Winner
Mary Nguemo Dzuamo is a Nigerian human rights lawyer and recipient of the REDRESS Innovative Lawyers Award. As a Legal Officer at Lawyers Alert, she advocates for vulnerable individuals facing unfair trials, ill-treatment, and other human rights violations.
In this blog, Mari explores why torture remains widespread in Nigeria despite the Anti-Torture Act 2017. Drawing on recent and historic cases, she examines how weak enforcement, state impunity, public fear, and cultural norms have allowed torture to persist, and argues for stronger accountability and reforms to ensure justice for survivors.
Torture in Nigeria is not accidental but a normalised practice, sustained by impunity, weak enforcement, lack of accountability and cultural acceptance. Nigeria’s legal reality on torture is shaped by three distinct categories of problems. The first is the State’s failure to enforce laws protecting its citizens. The second is fear, ignorance of the law, or cultural beliefs among the population. The third is the authority figure who bends the law to suit personal power, defining it not by statute but by discretion. In such cases, the law is stripped of meaning and turned into a tool of control.
The Infliction of Torture
Before the Anti-Torture Act of 2017, Nigeria endured severe abuses, including what Amnesty International described as “torture chambers” – secret detention sites run by the police or military where detainees were beaten, raped, or killed. These facilities often targeted women and children, and were used to extort money or force confessions, serving as shortcuts to “solving cases’’.
Apart from these, several public and private incidents of torture continued unabated. For instance, in 2009, Mr. Olayande Akinbayo was brutally assaulted by police officers, leaving him permanently blind after he refused to pay a bribe. Although a court awarded him ₦20 million in damages, enforcement stalled, the police refused to pay, and threats against him persisted.
Effect of the Anti-Torture Act 2017
Nearly a decade after its enactment, torture remains widespread despite the Anti-Torture Act’s alignment with the UN provisions and the 25-year penalty it prescribes.
No one has been successfully tried under the Act. Meanwhile, security agencies, government actors, and terrorist groups continue to use torture as a tool of control, leaving the law as “words without deeds.”
Citizens continue to endure brutal practices, including beatings with batons and cables, suspension in painful positions such as the “roasting” technique, kidnappings, electric shocks, and psychological torment through threats of death or prolonged isolation, as well as torture by Boko Haram and other extremist groups.
The Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) Saga
Between 2017 and 2020, Amnesty International reported at least 82 cases of torture and other human rights violations by SARS, some resulting in extrajudicial killings.
These abuses triggered the October 2020 protests, during which the military opened fire on peaceful demonstrators, killing at least 40 people. Many protesters were arrested and remained in custody for extended periods. The government’s own committee report was later dismissed as “fake news,” effectively impeding accountability and reinforcing a culture of impunity.
The Torture of a Surgeon in Uyo
Another incident that illustrates a broader pattern of State abuse concerns the assault against Prof. Effiong Ekpe. In May 2026, officers of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) reportedly stormed the University of Uyo Teaching Hospital, arrested and tortured Prof. Ekpe, and threatened anyone who tried to intervene. Reports suggest that this public assault stemmed from the hospital’s failure to provide a medical report requested by the officials
Why Torture Persists in Nigeria
Several factors explain the persistence of torture in Nigeria:
- Weak enforcement of the Anti-Torture Act 2017: No prosecutions or convictions have been recorded under the law.
- Public fear and lack of awareness: Many citizens are unaware of anti-torture laws, while others fear retaliation, as past protests have been met with excessive force and State violence.
- Cultural acceptance: In Northern Nigeria under Sharia law, spousal beatings are justified under the guise of “correction,” allowing cultural norms to override codified laws and leaving citizens unprotected.
- State impunity: Government institutions, including police and military, often act as though they are the ultimate authority on the law, and are rarely challenged or held accountable.
- The Constitution itself compounds the problem. While Section 14(2)(b) declares security and welfare to be the primary purpose of government, Section 6(6)(c) makes this non-justiciable. Citizens cannot sue the government for failing to protect them.
- As a result, the law meant to protect citizens instead empowers leaders, stripping away recourse. Impunity thrives as terrorists torture Nigerians openly, often on camera, without accountability. Even when arrests occur, the Anti-Torture Act is often bypassed in favour of initiatives such as Operation Safe Corridor (OPSC) – a programme launched in 2016 to rehabilitate and reintegrate perpetrators, fuelling further recruitment.
- Victims are frequently abandoned, without justice or compensation, and are left to endure trauma alone. This institutional failure deepens the divide between law and justice, leaving survivors broken, scarred, and often denied access to redress or rehabilitation.
What We Can Do
The Anti-Torture Act must move beyond paper into real enforcement, with officials held accountable and civil society sustaining pressure for compliance. Public sensitisation is vital to combat ignorance and cultural barriers that perpetuate abuse.
Decisive reforms are also needed: rehabilitating terrorists undermines the fight against torture and should end. The government’s core duty to provide welfare and security must be made justiciable, ensuring torture is never treated with levity.
About the Innovative Lawyers Awards
REDRESS’s Innovative Lawyers Awards recognise the vital work of new and emerging anti-torture champions, expose them to a broader peer support network, provide financial support to pursue public interest litigation and to inspire other lawyers and practitioners. This support is made available through the United Against Torture Consortium, which is funded by the European Union. The contents of the Innovative Lawyers Awards blog series are the sole responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union or REDRESS.
