NJOMACS

The Nigeria Police Force has been variously accused of highhandedness, brutality, extrajudicial killing and sundry human rights violations against the very citizens they are constitutionally empowered to protect and this has always made Nigerians to respond angrily to these acts of human rights abuses. This study analyzed Twitter (currently known as X) comments on Bolanle Raheem’s killing by a Nigerian policeman. The study adopted the Interest Theory to analyze the comments of the citizens and used the context theory to explain their reactions to the extrajudicial killing of the female lawyer. Data were generated through a qualitative literature review, while a purposive sampling technique was employed to select Twitter comments and 12 tweets were harvested for the study. Findings show that the myriads of twitter comments by Nigerians on the brutal killing of the female lawyer by an officer of the Nigeria Police Force portrayed Nigerians’ misgivings regarding the total disrespect to the rights of Nigerians including right to life and the horrifying character of personnel of the Force. Further findings indicate that Nigerians’ twitter comments on Bolanle Raheem’s killing seriously dented the image of the Force in the estimation of the citizens. On the strength of these findings, the study concluded that the inappropriate and unconstitutional behaviours, brutality and extrajudicial killing of Bolanle Raheem by the personnel of the Force has led to mutual suspicion and a strained relationship between the citizens and the Force. The study thus recommended, inter alia, that government should do everything necessary to carry out serious recruitment reforms with particular emphasis on training and retraining so that it will not only sanitize the Force on its professionalism but also purge it of bad eggs.