A legal practitioner and human rights advocate, Hamza Dantani, has called on security and law enforcement agencies across Nigeria to adopt the Department of State Services’ emerging compensation policy for innocent citizens wrongly arrested, unlawfully detained or injured during security operations.
Dantani made the appeal while commending the Director-General of the DSS, Oluwatosin Ajayi, for approving compensation for victims of wrongful arrests and operational mistakes, describing the initiative as a bold step that could strengthen public confidence in Nigeria’s security institutions.
According to him, security agencies have a constitutional obligation to protect the country, but they also owe innocent citizens a legal and moral duty to acknowledge mistakes and provide remedies where rights have been violated.
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“This is a bold, commendable, and unprecedented gesture that deserves national recognition. It demonstrates that while security agencies have a constitutional responsibility to protect the nation, they also have a moral and legal obligation to acknowledge mistakes and provide remedies to innocent citizens whose rights have been violated,” he said.
The lawyer argued that Nigeria’s campaign against terrorism, banditry, kidnapping and other violent crimes must not come at the expense of the rule of law or fundamental human rights.
“The pursuit of security must never come at the expense of justice. National security and respect for fundamental human rights are not opposing ideals; they are complementary principles that strengthen one another,” he added.
Dantani seeks broader accountability
Dantani said the DSS had shown that admitting and correcting institutional mistakes does not weaken operational effectiveness but instead reinforces accountability and public trust.
He cited several publicly known cases in which innocent citizens were compensated after internal reviews found they had been wrongly arrested or detained, saying the initiative should become standard practice across all security agencies.
The lawyer noted that wrongful arrests often leave victims with lasting financial, emotional and reputational damage.
“Although monetary compensation can never fully restore lost time, damaged reputations, or emotional trauma, it is an important acknowledgment that an injustice has occurred and that the State is willing to accept responsibility for its actions,” he said.
He urged the Nigeria Police Force, the Nigerian Army, the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency and other security organisations to introduce similar compensation mechanisms whenever investigations establish that innocent persons were wrongly arrested, unlawfully detained or harmed during official operations.
Dantani also advocated reforms aimed at reducing wrongful arrests, including improved intelligence gathering, stronger identity verification, wider use of forensic investigations, enhanced inter-agency collaboration, regular human rights training and independent review mechanisms to investigate complaints.
“Professionalism demands caution before depriving any citizen of liberty. An arrest should never be treated as punishment, and detention should never become a substitute for proper investigation,” he said.
He expressed hope that the DSS initiative would mark the beginning of a new era of accountability across Nigeria’s security institutions.
“The true measure of a nation’s justice system is not merely its ability to punish the guilty, but also its willingness to protect the innocent and to correct its own mistakes whenever they occur,” he said.
