EXTRA-JUDICIAL KILLINGS AND POLITICAL CRISIS IN NIGERIA’S FOURTH REPUBLIC

Abstract

Extra-judicial killings are the unlawful termination of people by the government or its agencies without the sanction of any judicial proceeding. This has been happening consistently in Nigeria’s Fourth Republic, and the situation is heart breaking considering that the primary purpose of government is to safeguard lives and property. Unfortunately, it appears that the more the government or its agencies operate this way, the more the country run into political crisis. Worried by this situation, the general objective of the paper is to study extrajudicial killings and the roles they play in creating political crisis in Nigeria’s 4th Republic. The specific objectives are to determine whether extrajudicial killings were a primary cause of political crisis in Nigeria’s 4th Republic, and to find out if an end to extrajudicial killings can prevent political crisis in Nigeria’s 4th Republic. The theory of democratic policing and constitutionalism guides the study. The findings reveal that extrajudicial killings are anti-democratic; amounts to lack of respect for the constitution and therefore is a primary cause of political crisis in Nigeria’s 4th Republic. The paper concludes that an end to extrajudicial killings could avert political crisis in future and recommends that the acclaimed “Supremacy of the Constitution” should be practiced, and that Nigerian security agencies should be subjected to constitutional regulation.