The Spate of Unlawful Conduct by Security Agents against Citizens in Ilorin, Kwara State Nigeria: Implication for Policing.

Abstract

The spate of unlawful conducts by security agents against innocent citizens particularly in the course of fighting cyber fraud in Nigeria is alarming. Ranging from brutality, arbitrary arrest, illegal detention, defamation, extortion, bribery and extra-judicial killing, these conducts are excruciating to the public and have attracted several reactions including public protest and continual distrust of security agents from citizens and victims of these misconducts. The consequences of these unlawful conducts are particularly damaging to the victims. Against this backdrop, the research examines the spate of unlawful conducts by security agents against citizens in Ilorin, Kwara State, Nigeria. The areas selected were Tanke, Malete and Oke-Ose. Guided by Gottfredson and Hirschi’s General Theory of Crime (GTC) and Agnew’s General Strain Theory (GST), the study adopts qualitative method (involving in-depth interviews) to generate data from twenty-four (24) respondents who were purposively selected through snow-ball sampling technique. Content analysis reveals that majority of people complained of the high vulnerability of citizens to unlawful misconducts and the extent of citizens’ sufferings resulting from the brutality of security agents ranges from fear, monetary loss and injuries to psychological traumas and loss of lives. Therefore, the study recommends strict punishment of ‘bad’ security agents and instituting compensations for victims of security agents’ misconducts.