According to the findings, at least 200 people died or disappeared while in custody at Tiger Base during the four-year period.
A new damning report has uncovered widespread and systematic human rights abuses at the Anti-Kidnapping Unit of the Nigeria Police Force, Imo State Command popularly known as “Tiger Base.”
The report linked the unit to torture, extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, and large-scale extortion between 2021 and 2025.
The report, released by the Centre for Accountability and Transparency Initiatives (CAPTI), is based on extensive field investigations, survivor testimonies, accounts from families of victims, and analysis of official records.
It concludes that the scale and pattern of abuses amount to crimes under both Nigerian and international law.
According to the findings, at least 200 people died or disappeared while in custody at Tiger Base during the four-year period.
Among the identified victims are Japhet Njoku, Magnus Ejiogu, and Ekene Francis Elemuwa.
Several others remain unidentified, with their bodies either missing or allegedly withheld by the police authorities.
The report paints a grim picture of a detention facility where torture was routine.
Former detainees described severe beatings, electric shocks, and prolonged suspension by limbs. In some particularly brutal cases, officers were accused of using filing machines to inflict serious bodily harm on detainees.
Beyond physical torture, the report says Tiger Base functioned as a legal “black hole” where constitutional rights were routinely denied.
Suspects were allegedly detained for weeks or months without charge, denied access to lawyers, and cut off from their families.
CAPTI further revealed that arbitrary detention was used to fuel a lucrative extortion racket.
Families were reportedly forced to pay between ₦200,000 and ₦20 million to secure the release of detainees, including in cases that should have been treated as civil disputes rather than criminal matters.
The report also documented at least 50 cases of enforced disappearance linked to the facility.
Victims such as Pastor Chinedu, Reverend Cletus Nwachukwu, Onuocha Johnbosco, and Sunday and Calista Ifedi were said to have vanished after being taken into Tiger Base custody, with their families still receiving no official explanation.
Investigators accused the unit of deliberately obstructing accountability by denying access to human rights organisations, blocking the National Preventive Mechanism, concealing detention records, and intimidating potential witnesses.
Female detainees, the report noted, faced additional abuses, including alleged rape, sexual exploitation, and forced labour. These acts, CAPTI said, occurred within a system that treated detainees as property rather than as citizens entitled to constitutional protection.
Despite multiple petitions submitted to the Inspector-General of Police, the Police Service Commission, and the National Human Rights Commission, the report said no conclusive investigation has been carried out and no officer has been criminally prosecuted. Tiger Base, it added, continues to operate with “unbridled impunity.”
CAPTI warned that the situation at Tiger Base reflects a broader crisis of policing misconduct and corruption in Nigeria’s South-East, where security concerns are increasingly used to justify parallel systems of detention operating outside the rule of law.
“The unit has become an instrument of terror, extortion, and political repression rather than a law enforcement body protecting citizens,” the report stated.
Among its recommendations, CAPTI called for the immediate disbandment of Tiger Base, the transfer of all personnel for independent investigation, and the commencement of criminal prosecutions against officers implicated in torture, killings, and extortion.
It also urged the release or proper charging of all detainees held beyond constitutional limits, the strengthening of civilian oversight mechanisms, and full reparations for victims and their families.
The report warned that without urgent intervention, Tiger Base would continue to function as a “death chamber” for residents of Imo State, risking a repeat of the conditions that sparked the #EndSARS protests, with potentially more devastating consequences.
“Nigeria stands at a crossroads,” the report concluded, “between enforcing accountability and allowing security units to operate beyond the law, at the cost of countless lives.”
Present at the inauguration of the report were; fiery human rights activist, Omoyele Sowore, Chido Onumah, former Secretary of Nigeria Bar Association (NBA), Chinedu Agu, the Amnesty International, National Coordinator Initiative Against Human Rights Abuse & Torture (INHURAT), Gerald Katchy, Executive Director, Social Action, Isaac Botti and many others.