Lawyer Petitions Inspector-General, Egbetokun To Stop Nigerian Police’s Rampant Seizure Of Phones, Other Electronic Gadgets At Stations

A Lagos-based lawyer, Robert Igbinedion Esq has written a petition to the Nigerian Inspector General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun, over the rampant seizure of phones and other personal gadgets of citizens at various police stations nationwide.

Igbinedion, who is also the founder and convener of National Association for the Defence and Advancement of Nigeria (NADAN), said the Nigerian police had the habit of always asking anybody visiting the stations to submit their phones and gadgets before being allowed in.

In his petition, the lawyer argued that the habit was a breach of constitutional rights, while urging the IGP to take appropriate steps towards immediate abrogation of the “illegal” action of his men.

The petition reads: “I write to petition your good office over the now entrenched, unwholesome and unconstitutional practice of Harassing and Intimidating Lawyers and other Nigerians who have need to visit Police Stations and Police formations all over the Country.

“At entrance gates, lawyers, visitors and Nigerians who may have matters that take them to Police Stations and formations are subjected to harassment and are told to drop their phones and other form of electronic gadgets and those who refused are turned back while the gadgets of those proceeding are temporarily confiscated pending when the person is leaving the Police Station.

“What breach or crime were phones and electronic gadgets ever committed with at Police Station and Police formations to warrant the Police to dedicate such huge manpower across the nation just for the purpose of seizing phones and harassing anyone who refuse to drop his or electronic gadgets, taking stocks of gadget collected and released and also taking out time to brawl with persons who refuse to drop the telephones or electronic gadgets.”

“I recently had cause to meet up with my Clients at a Police post located at Ikota, Eleganza Bus Stop Lekki Epe Expressway, Lagos. As I was about to proceed, I decided to call at least one of them, but not one, not two but three of them never picked up their calls, I couldn’t blindly travel down to the station not knowing what my clients were up to, it was after several hours, that I discovered that their phones were taken away from them even at Police Post despite the fact that they were not under investigation for any crime.

“Right to own and use telephones and electronic gadgets communication gadgets are constitutionally guaranteed rights and there is no provision for deprivation of such right except in a limited way for persons suspected to have committed a crime and are under police detention and this does not in any way empower the police to seize or interfere with use of Telephone by lawyers and other Nigerians who may have business at police station.

“Sir, the issue raised herein may sound like just an isolated incident which happens to a individual or a group at one police station, but when put on a scale to cover incidents all over the federation and Federal Capital Territory (FCT), ti will be easy to understand how massive the scale of this practice and possible loss that is being incurred as a result of this policy.

“We believe that your Excellency, it is time to scrap this unsupportable policy and allow free flow of persons going in and out of Police Stations and with their telephones like in other normal places subject however to putting such gadgets on silence.”

“This policy and challenge thereof is not new, sometimes ago this policy was practised at the Federal High Court, Abuja, prompting a Lawyer, Inibehe Effiong Esq to write to the Chief Judge of Federal High Court. The Chief Judge graciously directed the stoppage of the practice and ever since then, there have, I believe not been any untoward or negative incident either at the Federal High Court or any court in Nigeria as a result of allowing Nigerians to use their telephone and other electronic gadgets in their premises.”