Maureen Okpe
African Law Foundation(AFRILAW) in a bid to enhance the adherence of human rights laws on security personnel, has organised a training for the Private Security Companies of Nigeria.
The Private Security human rights training workshop which took place on Monday, in Abuja, by AFRILAW was with Support from DCAF and funded by the UK government.
Founder and Chief Executive Director, AFRILAW, Chinwike Okereke said, the training is aimed at strengthening the Private Security companies in Nigeria, in their management and service delivery, with respect to human right violations.
Okereke disclosed that a study carried out by the organisation, exposed the shortfall of the security companies and the low standard of operations as compared to best international practice.
He said, “we noticed a low standard of operation, the use of force, unlawful arrest, sexual and gender based violence issues of ethics, corruption among other unethical behaviour.
“Some of the companies violates the rights of their employees as wage paid is not commiserate to service rendered. We also noticed the issues of low ethics, corruptions, sexual and gender based violence.
“These issues are also witnessed in unlawful dismissal without pay, some do not go for leave.
Speaking further Okereke noted that, “the companies need to know what the international standards is, the principles, and comply to this in doing their work.
“This is set up to see how we can work with them to improve the standard of human rights and this will help to improve the industry, to ensure necessary guidelines are put in place.
For his part, National President, Association of Licensed Security Practitioners of Nigeria, Chris Adikwu acknowledged the need for the association to make concerted efforts in working in line with the international best practice.
Adikwu said, the association’s major focus is to drive standard across board according to him, the training on human right taken is a good step in the right direction, adding, security have to do with human life as such when it comes to standard the organisation should not be found wanting.
“We need to do a lot of work in house, i believe this sector can drive economic investment as people tend to invest more where there is security and this makes business to thrive.
“We are dealing with humans, how do we treat staff, as they also have rights as thier boss. We are collaborating with organisations to help improve the standard of our work ethics in line with best practice.
“For us we run beats, any job that requires high level of concentration there should be enough time to take a rest, there are some instances where some personnel are ready to work twenty four hours, in order to earn more money. But working with the right ethics this is wrong. As workers are entitled to rest hours.
“We intend to work to standardising the profession so that people can build a career in the security industry and not be a stop gap job,” he said.
Also, Chairman ALPSPN Abuja zone, Major General Shehu Abdul-Kadir (retd), acknowleded that sometimes employers of the labour in the sector infringe on the rights of subordinates,by way of omission or commission.
“This is as we lack the ability to gets our acts together.
“The more we talk about human rights, the better the understanding. We are saying that we want our sector to be better and one of the ways is internalising best practices, as this will make us better accepted.”
The training is expected to be carried out in the nine states of, Delta, Kwara, Plateau, Bauchi, Lagos, Ogun, Rivers Kano and the FCT, across the zones of the associations.