It happens suddenly. The knock at the door at 2 AM. The police vehicle that pulls up as you walk home. The officer who approaches you at the checkpoint and says: come with us. In that moment, the law becomes real. Not abstract words in a constitution, but the question of whether you will spend tonight in your bed or in a cell.

You have rights in that moment. The Constitution says so. Section 35 guarantees your right to personal liberty. It says that no person shall be deprived of their liberty except in specific circumstances — for the purpose of executing a court order, for bringing you before a court, for reasonable suspicion that you have committed a crime, to prevent you from committing a crime, or for your own welfare if you are a minor or unable to care for yourself.

But rights are not self-executing. They mean nothing if you do not know them. They mean nothing if the person with the gun does not respect them. They mean nothing if you are too afraid to claim them. So this is what you need to know. This is what the Constitution says. This is what the law requires. And this is what you can do, even when the power is all on the other side.

When you are arrested, the officer must tell you why. This is the law. Section 35(3) of the Constitution says: any person who is arrested or detained shall have the right to remain silent or avoid answering any question until after consultation with a legal practitioner or any other person of his own choice. And Section 35(4) says: any person who is arrested or detained shall be informed in writing within twenty-four hours of the facts and grounds for his arrest or detention.

You do not have to answer questions. You do not have to explain yourself. You do not have to prove your innocence. You have the right to remain silent, and you should use it. Anything you say can be used against you. The police know this. They will ask questions anyway. They will suggest that cooperation will make things easier. They will imply that silence is guilt. Do not believe them. Silence is your right.

You have the right to a lawyer. Section 35(2) says that any person who is arrested or detained shall be allowed to consult a legal practitioner of his own choice. This means you can demand to see a lawyer immediately. If you do not have one, you can ask that one be provided. In practice, this right is often denied. But you should demand it anyway. You should ask for the name of the officer who denies it. You should remember the details. Because every denial is a violation, and every violation can be challenged later.

You must be charged or released within twenty-four hours. This is the Constitution's requirement. Section 35(5) says: any person who is arrested or detained for the purpose of bringing him before a court shall be brought before a court within a reasonable time. And it defines reasonable time as: in the case of an arrest or detention in any place where there is a court of competent jurisdiction within a radius of forty kilometers, a period of one day. In other words, if there is a court within forty kilometers, you must be charged or released within twenty-four hours.

This requirement is routinely violated. People are held for days, weeks, months without charge. This is illegal. It is unconstitutional. It does not matter what the police say about their investigation or the complexity of the case. If they cannot charge you within twenty-four hours (or forty-eight hours if there is no court within forty kilometers), they must release you.

You have the right to be treated with dignity. The Constitution does not explicitly say this, but it is implied in every section. You cannot be tortured. You cannot be subjected to inhuman or degrading treatment. The Police Act 2020 explicitly prohibits torture and says that any confession obtained by torture is inadmissible in court. If you are beaten, threatened, or forced to sign a statement you did not make, that statement cannot be used against you.

You have the right to have someone informed of your arrest. The Police Act says that the police must inform a relative or friend of your arrest, and allow you to communicate with them. This is not always honored. But you should ask for it. You should demand it. You should keep asking until they refuse, and then you should remember who refused and when.

If you are arrested without a warrant, the police must have reasonable suspicion that you have committed a crime. They cannot arrest you simply because they do not like you, or because you argued with them, or because you are in the wrong place at the wrong time. Reasonable suspicion means they have specific facts that suggest you committed a specific offense. If they cannot articulate this, the arrest is unlawful.

What do you do if your rights are violated? You remember everything. The names, the dates, the times, the words spoken, the blows struck. You tell someone as soon as you can — a lawyer, a family member, a human rights organization. You file a complaint with the police hierarchy, with the Public Complaints Commission, with the National Human Rights Commission. You consider legal action — a lawsuit for unlawful detention, for violation of constitutional rights, for damages.

The system will not help you easily. The police protect their own. The courts are slow. The cost of legal action is high. But the alternative is silence, and silence allows the violations to continue. Every case that is brought, every violation that is documented, every officer who is held accountable — these chip away at the culture of impunity.

The Nigerian police have a difficult job. They are underpaid, undertrained, under-equipped. They face dangers that most citizens never see. None of this justifies the violation of constitutional rights. The badge does not confer the power to break the law. The uniform does not erase the requirement to respect human dignity.

When they come for you — and statistically, they are more likely to come for young men, for poor people, for those who live in the wrong neighborhoods — you are not helpless. You have rights that are written into the Constitution. You have laws that protect you. You have the right to remain silent, to demand a lawyer, to be charged or released within twenty-four hours, to be treated with dignity, to have someone know where you are.

These rights are violated every day. But they exist. And the first step toward making them real is knowing that they exist. The second step is claiming them, even when it is dangerous, even when it seems futile. Because rights that are not claimed become rights that do not exist. And you do not want to live in a country where no one remembers that they ever did.