Shot While Restrained: What the Law Says About the Effurun Killing
Shot While Restrained: What the Law Says About the Effurun Killing. There are moments in a nation’s life when a single image forces a collective pause. Not because it is new, but because it is familiar in the most unsettling way. In Effurun, Delta State, a young man, Mene Ogidi, was seated, restrained, and pleading. Within seconds, he was shot at close range by a police officer. The video has since travelled across timelines, screens, and conversations, leaving behind outrage, disbelief, and a question that refuses to go away: how does a citizen move from custody to execution in one breath? The law is not silent on this. Under Section 33 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, the right to life is not decorative, it is fundamental. It is protected not only from unlawful killing but from the arbitrary exercise of state power. The use of force by law enforcement is not absolute; it is conditional, guided, and limited. A suspect who has been subdued, restrained...