A governor can ban night arrests in Kogi State, north-central Nigeria, but without control of the police command, residents still have no guarantee that the ban will be obeyed.

Development Diaries reports that Kogi State Governor Ahmed Ododo has directed security agencies to stop night arrests across the state, including the invasion of homes and apprehension of residents at night.

The directive has been welcomed because it targets a policing practice that exposes families to unlawful arrests, intimidation and abuse, while also highlighting the constitutional gap that leaves governors politically responsible for security in their states without operational control over the police.

Section 214(1) of Nigeria’s constitution establishes the Nigeria Police Force as the country’s sole police force, while Section 215(2) places it under the command of the Inspector-General of Police (IGP), with state commands headed by commissioners of police.

Section 215(4) allows a governor to give the commissioner of police lawful directions on maintaining public safety and public order, but the commissioner of police can refer such directions to the president or a designated minister before acting on them.

That leaves governors politically responsible for security problems they cannot directly control. Governor Ododo’s directive therefore exposes the same contradiction that has kept the state police debate alive for years.

He can demand that night arrests stop, but whether the Kogi State Police Command actually enforces the restriction ultimately depends on the police chain of command.

The practice targeted by the directive also raises questions because much of it is already prohibited under Nigerian law. The Administration of Criminal Justice Act 2015 prohibits arresting people in place of suspects, requires arrests to be recorded and places duties on magistrates to inspect police detention facilities.

Section 8 of the Act prohibits arresting a person in lieu of a suspect, including taking a relative when the wanted person cannot be found. Section 15 requires arrests to be recorded, while Section 34 requires magistrates to visit police stations and detention facilities within their jurisdiction every month to inspect and inquire into arrests without warrant.

Nigeria therefore already has legal safeguards against much of the conduct the governor is trying to stop. The problem is that neither the police nor the judiciary routinely publishes enough information to show how those safeguards are being enforced.

The Nigeria Police Force does not publish arrest records by station, the judiciary does not publish the returns from monthly detention inspections, and the Police Service Commission does not provide citizens with regular command-level data showing complaints and disciplinary outcomes.

That leaves residents with little way to know if a night arrest violated the law, whether anyone investigated it or if the officer faced consequences. A governor’s public directive can draw attention to the problem, but it cannot replace a system that records violations and enforces the rules.

The Police Service Commission already has constitutional responsibility for the appointment, promotion, dismissal and discipline of police officers other than the IGP. It therefore has a direct role in ensuring that unlawful arrests in Kogi produce consequences that residents can see.

The rights involved are also not new, as Section 34 of the constitution protects the dignity of the human person and prohibits torture and inhuman or degrading treatment, while Section 35 protects personal liberty and requires arrested persons to be informed of the grounds for their arrest and brought before a court within a reasonable time.

Section 37 protects the privacy of citizens, including their homes and communications, making the forced entry into a home at night a serious interference with a constitutionally protected space, while Section 36(5) also guarantees the presumption of innocence.

The African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, which Nigeria has ratified, prohibits arbitrary arrest and detention, while the Luanda Guidelines require arrests to be lawful, reasons for arrest to be given, and detention to be recorded in a register accessible to the detainee’s family and lawyer.

The burden of night raids also falls unevenly, with low-income households in unplanned settlements more exposed because residents are less likely to have lawyers on call or the resources to challenge an unlawful arrest, while raids in gated estates carry a different level of political and social risk for the officers involved.

Women and girls face particular risks when armed men enter homes at night, as arrests conducted in the absence of female officers can expose women to humiliation, sexual violence and unlawful searches, while the practice of arresting relatives in place of male suspects can leave wives, mothers and sisters detained for offences they did not commit.

Young men are also heavily exposed to mass arrests based on suspicion rather than evidence, adding to a remand population already dominated by poor and unconvicted people.

Children in homes where a parent is arrested face the immediate loss of care and the psychological impact of watching armed officers take someone away, while people with disabilities and older residents may face greater difficulty responding to forced entry or following hurried commands.

Families also bear the financial cost of securing release, often through payments that are not formally recorded.

The responsibility for changing this is spread across the Kogi State Police Command, the IGP, the Police Service Commission, the Kogi State Judiciary, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), and the Kogi State House of Assembly.

The quickest way to give Governor Ododo’s directive operational force is for the IGP to issue a force order applying the restriction to the Kogi State Command, with clear exceptions for situations such as warrant execution and hot pursuit.

That would put the restriction inside the police chain of command instead of leaving it as a political announcement.

The judiciary can reinforce it by publishing the monthly inspection returns required under Section 34 of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act. Once police detention records are regularly examined and published, unlawful arrests become harder to hide and easier to challenge.

Residents can also help create the evidence needed to determine whether the directive is working by reporting night raids in writing to the Police Service Commission, the Kogi State House of Assembly and the NHRC, with dates, locations and officer details where available.

Community organisations should keep a monthly record of reported night raids and publish the figures, while legal aid groups and the Nigerian Bar Association’s Lokoja branch should seek the state’s magistrate inspection records for the past year and publish whether the judiciary provides them.

Women’s rights organisations should pay particular attention to women arrested in place of male suspects because Section 8 of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act already prohibits the practice.

The IGP should then publish whether the restriction will become a formal police order in Kogi and whether the same protection will be extended to other states.

The Police Service Commission should publish quarterly complaint and disciplinary data for the Kogi State Command, while the Nigeria Police Force should establish a national protocol for night arrests, arrests involving children and the presence of women during searches.

Governor Ododo has put the issue on the public agenda. The next question is whether the police command, judiciary and oversight institutions will turn the announcement into a rule residents can actually rely on.