Children, 12, among thousands 'routinely' tortured by Nigerian police

Electric shocks, beatings and sexual violence among tactics regularly used on detainees by Nigerian security services, say Amnesty International
Children as young as 12 are routinely tortured by Nigeria's police and army despite millions of pounds of British aid being spent to help to reform the country’s notoriously ill-disciplined security services.
Amnesty International spoke to more than 500 men, women and children over 10 years to uncover repeated reports of torture chambers, detainees being denied access to family or lawyers, and a dozen regularly-used methods of torture.
These included electric shocks, sexual violence, pulling out nails and teeth and suspending people upside down by their feet or forcing them to sit on sharp objects.
Some police stations even have an unofficial "O/C Torture", the officer in charge of torture, which is still not criminalised in Nigeria, Amnesty said in a new report, "Welcome to Hellfire", published on Thursday.
A fifth of Britain's nearly £1 billion of aid earmarked for Nigeria between 2011 and 2015 is to be spent on "governance and security", according to the Department for International Development.
Thatincludes a £52 million "Justice For All" programme designed "to deliver efficient, effective and accountable policing and remand services".
Despite attempts at reform, however, conditions have not changed, and in fact worsened in recent years as suspected members of the al-Qaeda-allied Boko Haram were rounded up.
"This goes far beyond the appalling torture and killing of suspected Boko Haram members," said Netsanet Belay, Amnesty's research and advocacy director.
"Across the country, the scope and severity of torture inflicted on Nigeria's women, men and children by the authorities supposed to protect them is shocking even to the most hardened human rights observer."
One 15-year-old boy identified as Mahmood told how soldiers arrested him with roughly 50 other mainly boys aged between 13 and 19, and held him for three weeks.
They beat him repeatedly with gun butts, batons and machetes, poured melting plastic on his back, made him walk and roll over broken bottles, and forced him to watch other detainees being executed. He was eventually released in April 2013.
"Torture happens on this scale partly because no one, including in the chain of command, is being held accountable," Mr Belay from Amnesty said.
"Nigeria needs a radical change of approach, to suspend all officers against whom there are credible allegations of torture, to thoroughly investigate those allegations and to ensure that suspected torturers are brought to justice."
There was no immediate response from the Nigerian authorities. Nigeria's government and military have responded to previous Amnesty International reports of abuses with promises to investigate.
A DFID spokesman said British aid was not directly spent on Nigeria's police or army, but was sent through independent organisations to try to improve forces' human rights records.
“Allegations of human rights violations are extremely serious and must be thoroughly investigated," the spokesman said.

This news was reported by The telegraph