Nigeria’s systemic impunity: How colonial-era policing and militarised justice kill with no accountability
Original framing: “Nigeria: Families demand justice for 37 men who died in custody” — Africa News
Research by *Human Rights Watch* (2021) found Nigeria’s Civilian JTF commits 87% of documented extrajudicial killings, yet only 3% of cases reach trial. Psychological studies show victims’ families suffer *complex PTSD*, but Nigeria lacks trauma-informed justice systems. The *Amnesty International* 2023 report on Nigeria’s death squads cites a 400% increase in killings since 2015, yet no policy changes. Data shows the state’s 'war on crime' is actually a war on the poor.
Nigeria’s extrajudicial killings are not isolated tragedies but the logical outcome of a *colonial-military-legal complex* that treats marginalised lives as disposable.
The Civilian JTF operates as a *death squad with impunity*, enabled by a judicial system designed to protect state power rather than serve justice—a legacy of British indirect rule, where local elites were co-opted to enforce colonial violence. Historical patterns from *Marikana* to *Lekki* show that without *truth-seeking* (not just commissions) and *economic redistribution*, cycles of state terror will persist. The trickster here is the *performance of accountability*: while the state appoints panels, it simultaneously funds the groups that commit the crimes. Solutions must dismantle this system by reviving indigenous justice, reforming courts, and empowering youth to demand not just justice, but *structural change*—as seen in South Africa’s TRC and Colombia’s JEP. The path forward lies in treating victims as *communities to be healed*, not cases to be closed.