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Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal – Vol. 8, No. 5

Publication Date: May 25, 2021

DOI:10.14738/assrj.85.9933.

Norman, I. (2021). The Police Use of Force Mandate in West Africa. Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal, 8(5). 341-356.

Services for Science and Education – United Kingdom

The Police Use of Force Mandate in West Africa

Ishmael Norman, Ph. D., J. D., B. A.

Institute for Security, Disaster and Emergency Studies

Sandpiper Place, NYD 54/55 Nyanyano District, Suit # 1

Langma, Central Region, Ghana

ABSTRACT

This paper reviewed Police use of force mandate of the Constitutions of Ghana,

Nigeria, Sierra Leone and Gambia, to determine if the mandate is a contributory

factor for increased police killings. The evidence support the finding that, police

policy on the use of force contributes to increased extralegal killings, in the absence

of field protocols for its engagement. There is the need for clear articulation of how,

when, where force may be applied to cause arrest or suppress crime or riot. This

paper aims to contribute to knowledge on limiting the use of force abuses within

West Africa.

Key words: Police Use of Force mandate, West Africa.

INTRODUCTION

The Constitutions of Ghana, Nigeria, the Gambia and Sierra Leone, all of which are English

Speaking and Common Law nations in the West-African Sub-region, contain expressed grants

to Police organizations to use force in their own defence. This includes the use of deadly force,

to cause arrest, effect investigative stop, in defence of others and to suppress riot or

insurrection (1992 Constitution of Ghana, Article 13(2); 1999 Constitution of the Federal

Republic of Nigeria, Article 33(2); 1997 Gambia Constitution, Article 18(4) (1-4), and the 1996

Sierra Leone Constitution with Amendments through 2006, Article 16(2). In each of these

nations, Police Administration has developed policies for the operationalization of the

constitutional mandate, without any input from the broader civilian population against whose

positive, civil libertarian rights the mandate is supposed to encroach. For brevity, the author

will use Ghana as a case, although, where appropriate references to the other nations’ law or

cases would be made from time to time. The chapter dealing with the preservation of civil

liberties in the 1992 Constitution of Ghana, contains the use of force mandate. Clause (1) of

Article 13 of the 1992 Ghana Constitution, deals with the sanctity of human life and the right to

life and liberty in the exercise of the execution of a sentence of a court in criminal cases. The

same topic is covered in Clause one of the various articles cited from the three other

jurisdictions. Incidentally, the same language as the one below and quoted from the 1992 Ghana

constitution, is dittoed in the Gambian, Nigeria and the Sierra Leone Constitutions at Articles

18, 33 and 16 respectively.

LITERATURE REVIEW AND BACKGROUND

The part of the 1992 Constitution of Ghana, and therefore those of the three other nations, that

is germane to this discourse, is Article 13(2), which states that:

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Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal (ASSRJ) Vol. 8, Issue 5, May-2021

Services for Science and Education – United Kingdom

A person shall not be held to have deprived another person of his life in contravention of clause

(1) of this article if that other person dies as the result of a lawful act of war or if that other

person dies as the result of the use of force to such an extent as is reasonably justifiable in the

particular circumstances- a) for the defence of any person from violence or for the defence of property; or

b) in order to effect a lawful arrest or to prevent the escape of a person lawfully detained;

or,

c) for the purposes of suppressing a riot, insurrection or mutiny; or

d) in order to prevent the commission of a crime by that person.

Each nation appears to have left the determination of when (occasion or incident); and how

(proportionality) or what type of force (depending on the severity of the crime or conduct) that

needs to be used in a particular situation, to the Police Officer on the scene. Nigeria, however,

repeated the constitutional mandate in another document called the “Force Order No. 236:280-

282” requiring Police Officers to show that there was imminent harm to their persons before

the use of force. This is irrespective of the officer’s education, mental health, training and

experience. The use of force as an integral part of the standard operating procedure of national

police administrations, has become a source of worry for ordinary citizens and subjects alike

as well as for central government, particularly in Ghana recently and in the Sub-region

generally. The use of force appears to have made it possible for Police Officers to shoot or kill

civilians on the slightest provocation in some cases. An appreciable number of researchers

attribute the increased spate of police brutality or the use of force, among other factors, to the

organizational atmosphere of the Service. Alpert and Smith (1994-1995:494) opined that

“police subculture reinforces and provides encouragement for certain types of deviance and

corruption, and discouragement for other types” citing the work of Skolnick & Fyfe (1993:38-

42) to buttress the point. There is also the question of negative stereotypes and biases against

the residents of certain neighborhoods (Alpert et al., 2005; Cho & Ho, 2018). Other researchers

on the topic have looked at the public health implications on the conduct and how an Officer’s

antecedents including mental health, racial biases and other considerations, play significant

roles in the decision leading up to the use of force on a suspect (Obasogie & Newman, 2017,

Fryer, Jr. 2016).

There seems to be little or no guidelines for the Police Officers operating in critical crime zones

of the various urban centers in the West African Sub-region to know exactly how to counteract

hostile and aggressive, sometimes harmless civilian behavior. Obasogie & Newman, (2017:286-

290) conducted a review of the various use of force laws in 20 metropolises in the United States

of America. They concluded that the variant nature of the use of force protocols was an

important contributor to Police brutality, controlling for other odds such as education and

experience. They also established the linkages between public health dimensions such as

mental and social determinants of health and Police brutality. In addition, the United Nations’

International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, (UN/CCPR/C/GHA/CO/1, 2016) and

adopted in its 117th Session, expressed concern about reports of excessive use of force and

unlawful killings by law enforcement and security personnel in Ghana. The Committee

bemoaned the fact “that no statistics or information on prosecutions of perpetrators and

compensation to victims has been provided”. It also regretted “the lack of information on

measures taken to prevent those violations, including measures taken to bring the regulations

on the use of lethal force into compliance with the State party’s obligation under Article 6 of the

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Norman, I. (2021). The Police Use of Force Mandate in West Africa. Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal, 8(5). 341-356.

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.14738/assrj.85.9933

Covenant”. It noted with concern “that the mechanism to investigate police abuses is not fully

independent, as complaints against police officers are investigated by fellow officers (Articles

6 and 7)” (United Nations Country Report on Excessive Force, 2016). Similar sentiments or

condemnation have been made about the use of force reporting by all the three other nations

whose laws are under review. It is important to know and appreciate the magnitude of the

burden of police use of force through examples as provided here.

i. Ghana Case

As background story to this discourse, on July 17, 2018, 21 members of the Ghana Police Patrol

Team shot and killed 7 civilians they alleged to be armed robbers at Manso-Nkwanta, in the

Amansie West District, Ashanti Region, Ghana. The 7 young men were residents of a

predominantly Muslim Zongo community. Predominantly Muslim settlements in Ghana are

called Zongo. Whether their being residents of this predominantly Muslim community was a

significant factor or not, was not made evident in the after-action report (Cho & Ho, 2018). The

Police Administration went so far as to display the cache of weapons allegedly used by the

suspects on the Police, without additional evidence such as dusting the palms for gun-powder

residue, and producing spent cartridges. A five-member Committee was established by the

government to look into the circumstances surrounding the shooting and deaths of the seven

young men. The Committee refuted the claim that the guns were in the possession of the 7 men

at the time of the shooting. That is to say, the Police Administration concocted a cover story to

reframe the narrative, which is the kind of deviancy described by Skolnick & Fyfe, (1993:38-

42) and cited in Alpert & Smith, (1994:494). This was not the only event involving the use of

force in Ghana in 2018. At any rate, the 21 Police Officers involved in the matter were

interdicted on November 20, 2018 with recommendation by the Committee for criminal

prosecution and, or disciplinary action (Ghanaiantimes.com.gh, 2018:15).

ii. Sierra Leone Case

“Take what happened in Kabala, a small hilly town in northern Sierra Leone. Two years ago to

the day (16 August, 2016), young people from the town decided to hold a peaceful protest over

government plans to move the construction of a planned “youth village” from their district to

another district. The proposed youth village would have offered training and trade

opportunities for young people in the area, a beacon of hope in a country with high rates of

youth unemployment.

Youth leaders requested permission from the police to hold the demonstration but were told

they had to request this 21-days in advance. There are no provisions in Sierra Leone’s laws---

that already fall short of international standards on the right to peaceful assembly—to require

this. Youth groups decided to meet the next day to discuss what to do. Eyewitnesses reported

that the police fired tear gas outside the meeting venue to disrupt the meeting and stop the

youth from protesting. People started to run, scared by the loud noise and overpowering smell.

Eventually some young people started to throw stones at police officers. The police fired bullets

back at them, in violation of international standards which state that firearms must never be

used to disperse a crowd and should only be used when there is a real and imminent threat to

life. Four men were also injured by gunshot wounds”. “The Independent Police Complaints

Board (IPCB) investigated the incident and named police officers suspected of being involved

in the shooting”, and “that they recommended be criminally investigated. Yet two years on there