 Lawyer Inibehe Effiong has questioned the IGP’s concerns over Nigerians recording police officers while performing their duties. |
Legal practitioner Inibehe Effiong has disagreed with the Inspector-General of Police, Tunji Disu, over his warning against Nigerians recording police officers for social media skits.
Effiong argued that the concept of content creation was broad and could also apply to the Nigeria Police Force, which operates several platforms for producing and disseminating information.
The lawyer made the remarks on Friday during an interview on Channels Television, while reacting to comments by the IGP concerning the use of police officers in social media content.
Disu had warned Nigerians against recording police officers for skits, describing the practice as “very, very demoralising” to members of the force.
The IGP clarified that his concern was not with citizens’ right to record police officers, but with what he described as turning policemen into sources of social media content.
Reacting, Effiong questioned what should qualify as content creation and whether the defining factor should be financial gain or public enlightenment.
“What is content creation? Is it materials generated and disseminated or published or circulated for revenue generation? Or is it simply posting information for public enlightenment?” he asked.
Effiong argued that the police could also broadly be described as a content-creating institution because of the platforms it operates.
“Because if you examine the phrase content creator and content creation broadly, one can say that even the police itself is a content-creating institution,” he said.
According to him, the Nigeria Police Force operates social media accounts, a website and a radio station through which information is produced and distributed.
He said the distinction was therefore important when interpreting the IGP’s warning about using police officers for content creation.
Effiong questioned whether the warning was specifically directed at skit makers, entertainers and pranksters who produce humorous content for online audiences.
“So when the IG speaks about using policemen for content creation, it is important for us to be cautious,” he said.
Lawyer Questions Police Concern Over Recordings
Effiong also questioned why the police had expressed concern about citizens recording officers while they were carrying out their duties in public.
“The question is, why is the police constantly fidgeting over the recording of their officers in the course of their duties?” he asked.
Disu had cited situations in which police officers were allegedly filmed while eating as part of his concerns about the practice.
Effiong said he had not personally seen evidence suggesting that such incidents were widespread on social media and urged the police to provide examples supporting the concern.
“He cited an instance where he said police officers would be eating and people would be filming them. I haven’t seen that being a practice that is rampant on social media,” he said.
The lawyer maintained that Nigerians have a constitutional right to record law enforcement officers while they are carrying out their statutory responsibilities in public.
“But speaking generally, Nigerians have the right, unmistakably, to record incidents. Not just the police, but law enforcement officers generally, in the course of discharging their statutory responsibility,” Effiong said.
He referred to Section 39 of the 1999 Constitution, which guarantees freedom of expression, arguing that the protection includes the freedom to disseminate and propagate ideas and information.
Effiong further argued that such freedom extends to the means through which information is communicated, including mobile phones and other electronic devices.
His comments come amid an ongoing public debate over the boundaries between citizens’ rights to document activities of law enforcement officers and the need to protect the dignity and professionalism of police personnel.
