A human rights group, Coalition Against Tiger Base Impunity (CAPTI), has accused police officers at the anti-kidnapping unit, Imo State Police Command, commonly known as “Tiger Base, of torturing critics of Imo State governor, Hope Uzodimma.

The coalition called on the federal government to conduct independent investigation into the multiple cases of abuse linked to activities of police officers at the anti-kidnapping unit.

The coalition, on Monday, during a press conference, decried and condemned what it described as “systematic torture, extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, and brazen defiance of judicial authority”, routinely perpetrated by officers in the unit.

CAPTI stated, “At least eight documented cases show journalists, human rights activists, lawyers, and political critics of Imo State government being arrested and detained at Tiger Base on fabricated charges.”

According to a report, titled “Tiger Base Files: Systematic Torture, Extrajudicial Killings, and the Collapse of Police Accountability in Imo State,” the coalition revealed that there are no fewer than 200 death cases, orchestrated by officers of the unit between January 2021 and November 2025.

Opposed to police brutality and oppression, CAPTI noted that its findings revealed “a pattern of torture, extrajudicial executions, enforced disappearances, arbitrary detention, and extortion that amounts to crimes under national and international law.”

“The evidence reveals a grim toll: at least two hundred people died or disappeared in custody between 2021 and 2025. Among them were Japhet Njoku, Magnus Ejiogu, and Ekene Francis Elemuwa. Some of the victims remain unidentified, their bodies either missing or still withheld by police authorities,” the report stated.

“Detainees endured beatings, electric shocks, and prolonged suspension by their limbs. In particularly brutal cases, officers used filing machines to inflict severe bodily harm on detainees in their custody. Detainees are dumped into cells for weeks or months without charges, access to lawyers denied and cut off from family contact.”

“The arbitrary detention system fed a lucrative extortion operation, with families orced to pay between ₦200,000 and ₦20 million to secure releases, even in matters that should have been handled through civil courts rather than criminal detention. At least fifty people simply disappeared after entering Tiger Base’s custody,” the report noted.

Affirming the report’s credibility, CAPTI stated that it “conducted in-depth interviews with fifty-seven individuals whose lives intersected with the facility in devastating ways, twenty three former detainees who survived custody shared their experiences, and fifteen family members who spoke about loved ones who either died within Tiger Base or vanished without a trace.”

Commenting on the report, the coordinator of CAPTI, Juwon Sanyaolu, stated that police impunities in ‘Tiger Base’, which have led to death, torture and disappearance of many victims, are systematic state-sanctioned murder.

Mr Sanyaolu said, “Tiger Base has become synonymous with death, torture, and disappearance in Imo State. What we documented is not policing, it is systematic state-sanctioned murder operating with complete impunity.”

He added, “Officers torture detainees to death, defy court orders, ignore the Inspector General of Police, and even kill people after the National Human Rights Commission intervenes. Then they get promoted and awarded.”

Stating its key findings, the coalition disclosed that the anti-kidnapping unit perpetrated extrajudicial killings, torture as standard practice, enforced disappearances, defiance to the authority of the national human rights commission and the inspector general of police.

It also discovered that the anti-kidnapping unit perpetrated systematic extortion, brazen defiance of court orders, criminalisation of dissent, forced labour, as well as acting anonymously to evade accountability and hide their identities.

Described as the most damning part of its report, the coalition condemned how police officers who have been implicated in violations of human rights get promoted and honoured rather than disciplined.

“In August 2025, amid loud protests against Tiger Base activities, police authorities promoted Oladimeji Adeyeyiwa, the commander of Tiger Base, to the position of Assistant Commissioner of Police. In June 2025, police awarded him the honor of “Best Crime Buster of the Year 2024,” the report stated.

Recalling a particular abuse that preceded the appointment of Deputy Commissioner of Police, Akin Fakorede of the disbanded Special Anti-Robbery Squad in Rivers State, the coalition added that the act of rewarding questionable police officers with promotion extended beyond the egregious human rights violations linked to the Imo State anti-kidnapping unit personnel.

It said, “Deputy Commissioner of Police Akin Fakorede, who was head of the disbanded Special Anti-Robbery Squad in Rivers State from 2016 to 2019 was accused of serious human rights abuses including torture and extrajudicial executions and was indicted by the Rivers State Judicial Panel on SARS, was subsequently appointed head of the IGP Monitoring Unit, one of the police units charged with investigating officers involved in human rights violations.”

Mr Sanyaolu noted that the documented human rights violations are evidence of a police system that “does not merely tolerate impunity, but also celebrates and incentivizes it.”

The group noted that the series of violations it documented, as well as other unreported cases, were enabled by systemic lapses.

“Complaints to the Police Service Commission are referred back to the Nigeria Police Force for investigation, creating a closed loop of impunity. When contacted about Tiger Base violations, the Complaint Response Unit reported that the commanding officer was “too busy with the governor” to respond to investigations. Officers brazenly defy court orders with no consequences,” the statement read.

It added, “When the National Human Rights Commission documents torture and secures IGP approval for action, Tiger Base operatives ignore directives and kill detainees. The NHRC, National Preventive Mechanism, and human rights organizations are routinely denied meaningful access to detention facilities.”

Stating its demands, the coalition called on the federal government to immediately suspend a list of cited officers in its findings, including ACP Oladimeji Adeyeyiwa, Inspector Barnabas, Inspector Chidiebere Nwosu, and other officers, pending the time a thorough investigation would be completed.

The rights group called on the federal government to initiate independent investigations into its documented deaths of at least 200 Nigerians at the Tiger Base facility, including independent autopsies for recent cases.

It called on the President Bola Tinubu’s administration to probe and account for all disappeared persons, including Reverend Cletus Egole, Chinonso Eluchie, and several others whose whereabouts after arrests by Tiger Base operatives can no longer be ascertained.

The group tasked the government on the need to investigate allegations of organ and tissue trafficking, while establishing transparent procedures for handling bodies of all dead detainees.

It also called for the prosecution of officers responsible for the violations, implementation of structural reforms at the anti-kidnapping unit, and reparations to victims  and families whose rights have been violated.

CAPTI also demanded compliance to all court orders, as well as oversight mechanisms to the operation of the facility.

The coalition noted that its findings, as contained in the published report, would be forwarded to international stakeholders like UN Special Rapporteur on Torture; UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions; UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances; African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights; ECOWAS Court of Justice and all International diplomatic missions in Nigeria.

In a response to an earlier Peoples Gazette request for comment, the Imo State Police Command, through its spokesperson Henry Okoye, said victims should come forward with their complaints and evidence against its officers, adding that a police unit has been inaugurated to look into the allegations.