This article is a Keynote Address Delivered by Omoyele Sowore, Convener of Revolution Now Movement at the Launch of; "The Tiger Base...
This article is a Keynote Address Delivered by Omoyele Sowore, Convener of Revolution Now Movement at the Launch of;
"The Tiger Base Files"
A report of Systematic Torture, Extrajudicial Killings, and the Collapse of Police Accountability in Imo State, A Human Rights Report By the Coalition Against Tiger Base Impunity (CAPTI) On December 15, 2025, at Abuja
Distinguished guests, representatives of different organizations, colleagues from civil society, members of the press, families of victims, and fellow Nigerians:
Thank you for being here today.
I stand before you not to launch just another report about police brutality and abuse in Nigeria, but this is way deeper, there are now allegations of cannibalism, sex trafficking and organ harvesting by a notorious police unit at Tiger base in Owerri, Imo State
We have had many such reports. Shelves in government offices are filled with documentation of violations. International organizations have chronicled our failures. We know the problems. We have known them for years, for decades.
I stand before you today because this time, we are not just documenting. We are demanding. We are not just reporting. We are mobilizing. We are not just bearing witness. We are declaring war on impunity.
Today, we launch "The Tiger Base Files", a comprehensive investigation into systematic torture, extrajudicial killings, and enforced disappearances at the Anti-Kidnapping Unit of the Imo State Police Command. But more than that, today we launch the #TigerBaseMustFall campaign, a sustained, coordinated, unrelenting effort to achieve accountability for the crimes documented in this report and to ensure that no police unit in Nigeria ever again operates with such complete impunity anchored on utter disregard for human dignity, human life and human rights.
Let me share with you what we found.
Between January 2022 and November 2025, at least 200 people died in Tiger Base custody. Two hundred human beings who went into that facility alive and came out dead, and in some cases, vital organs disappeared, having been harvested for reasons we can't yet fathom. For this reason, Tiger Base is referred to as a place of no return.
Former detainees who survive the ordeal describe nightly executions of three to twenty people. Every single night. Names called in the darkness. Men taken out. Bodies are disposed of without family notification. What has been taking place is an industrial-scale torture and murder machine in action.
We documented systematic torture in designated "torture chambers", special interrogation rooms designed explicitly for inflicting pain. We found victims with permanent disabilities from crucifixion-style hanging. We interviewed young women who lost pregnancies after officers stomped on their bellies, and several were too afraid to speak because of the shame, who were serially raped or trafficked sexually.
We met fathers who died in cells while their daughters listened helplessly through walls. We documented cases where even the National Human Rights Commission's intervention could not save detainees marked for death.
But here is what makes this report different, what makes this moment unprecedented: we are naming names, both of victims and perpetrators. We are identifying officers. We are documenting the chain of command responsible for these heinous crimes.
We are establishing individual criminal responsibility. And we are demanding prosecution.
ACP Oladimeji Adeyeyiwa commanded Tiger Base during the period when at least 200 people died. Under his watch, detainees were tortured, families were extorted, court orders were defied, and the National Human Rights Commission was ignored. In August 2025, he was promoted to Assistant Commissioner of Police. In June 2025, he was awarded "Best Crime Buster of the Year 2024."
Hear this- while families buried loved ones or searched desperately for disappeared relatives, while courts issued orders demanding accountability, while human rights monitors documented systematic violations, the officer commanding that unit was promoted and honoured.
This is the impunity we have come to challenge today.
Some will ask: Why Tiger Base? Why Imo State? Are there not police abuses everywhere in Nigeria?
Yes. There are. But Tiger Base represents something more than routine abuse. It represents the complete collapse of every accountability mechanism we have known, even after the famed 2020 anti-police abuse uprising known as #ENDSARS. It represents what happens when impunity becomes so total, so absolute, that even presidential authority cannot penetrate it OR abate it.
On September 23, 2025, Magnus Ejiogu was arrested at a motor park in Owerri. Four days later, just four days, the National Human Rights Commission intervened, documenting torture and calling for his release. The Inspector-General of Police reportedly approved the transfer of his case to Abuja. These are the highest authorities we have, our statutory human rights body and the commander of the entire Nigeria Police Force.
Tiger Base officers ignored both. They defied the NHRC. They disobeyed the IGP, but make no mistake: the IGP is himself complicit, having been known to refer frivolous petitions sent to his office by highly connected Nigerians to Tiger Base for "investigation and enforcement." Some of these petitions, including those that use his weak leadership and command to punish critics who merely use social media platforms to call them out.
On October 27, 2025, Magnus died in custody. Police claimed "sudden illness." The NHRC had documented torture before his death. As of today, no officer has been suspended. No investigation announced. The commanding officer was promoted.
If the National Human Rights Commission, operating under presidential authority, cannot save a man documented to be tortured, then what protection exists for any Nigerian? If subordinate officers can ignore direct orders from the Inspector-General of Police without consequence, then what command structure functions?
The answer is: None. And that is why Tiger Base must fall.
But let me be clear about something: Tiger Base is not an aberration. It is a symptom. It is the logical endpoint of a system designed to ensure police impunity. The same patterns we document at Tiger Base are present in other anti-crime units across Nigeria. The Intelligence Response Team in Abuja. Police formations in every state. The names change. The practices remain.
Five years ago, millions of young Nigerians took to the streets demanding an end to SARS brutality. The world watched. The government promised reform. What changed? Officers implicated in SARS atrocities were promoted to positions investigating police abuse. The police sued judicial panels to stop them from investigating. Victims awarded compensation by courts remain unpaid. The EndSARS protests showed us that mass mobilization can force acknowledgment. But acknowledgement without accountability is just another form of impunity.
That is why today we launch not just a report but a campaign. #TigerBaseMustFall is not a hashtag. It is a commitment. It is a promise to the families represented here today that we will not move on to the next report, the next scandal, the next atrocity, until there is justice for Tiger Base victims.
To Mrs. Ifeyinwa Egole, whose husband, Reverend Cletus, disappeared in February 2021 and who told us: "I don't know the whereabouts of my husband. I have not heard from him! I don't know whether he is alive or dead!", we say: We will not rest until your husband is accounted for.
To the family of Japhet Njoku, whose two-month-old baby will never know his father because he was tortured to death over unsubstantiated allegations, we say: We will pursue justice for Japhet until every officer responsible face prosecution.
To the families of the 200 who died, to those still searching for disappeared loved ones, to survivors carrying permanent scars from Tiger Base torture, we say: Your pain will not be in vain. Your stories will not be forgotten. Your demand for justice will be our mission.
The #TigerBaseMustFall campaign has clear, concrete demands:
First: Immediate suspension of ACP Adeyeyiwa and all officers directly implicated in documented violations pending independent investigation.
Second: Independent autopsies for recent deaths at Tiger Base and accounting for all disappeared persons.
Third: Criminal prosecution of officers responsible for torture, extrajudicial killings, and enforced disappearances.
Fourth: A total shutdown of TIGER BASE in Owerri, Imo state and subsequently, fundamentally structured reforms at Tiger Base; mandatory uniforms with identification, unhindered oversight access, prohibition of incommunicado detention, and transparent record-keeping.
Fifth: Reparations for victims and families.
We will pursue these demands through every available avenue; legal action in Nigerian courts, petitions to regional mechanisms, engagement with UN special procedures, sustained media campaigns, coalition building, and public mobilization. We will not be silent. We will not be patient. We will not accept promises of future reform while present violations continue.
To government officials here today: We are giving you a choice. You can be part of the solution or part of the problem. You can use your authority to demand accountability or use it to defend the indefensible. You can honour your oath to uphold the Constitution or continue enabling its violation. History will record your choice.
To the media: This is not a one-day story. We need sustained coverage. We need investigative follow-ups. We need you to keep asking: Why has no officer been suspended? When will there be prosecutions? What happened to the bodies? Where are the disappeared? Your persistence can break through the wall of silence.
To civil society colleagues: Join this campaign. Share resources. Coordinate actions. Let us present a united front. The architecture of impunity is strong because it is unified. Our response must be equally unified.
To international partners: Nigeria has ratified your conventions. We have signed your treaties. We attend your conferences. Demand that we honour our commitments. Use diplomatic pressure. Engage UN mechanisms. Make the international cost of impunity higher than its domestic benefits.
To ordinary Nigerians, especially young people: This is your fight. Tiger Base criminalizes being young in Imo State. Having a scar, driving a nice car, buying fuel, and withdrawing money are grounds for arrest. You are not safe. None of us is safe while such units operate with impunity. Your voice matters. Your mobilization matters. Your refusal to accept this as normal matters.
Some will say we are being too confrontational, too aggressive, too demanding. They will say reform takes time, that we must be patient, that we should work within the system. To them I say: The system has failed. Patience has been tried. Working within structures designed to protect perpetrators has produced only more victims.
More than two hundred people are dead. Families live with the agony of not knowing if their loved ones are alive. Survivors carry permanent disabilities from torture. Officers who committed these crimes have been promoted. This is not a time for patience. This is a time for accountability.
Tiger Base must fall—not just as a physical facility, though its closure would be justice. Tiger Base must fall as a symbol of what Nigeria has tolerated for too long. It must fall so that no other unit operates this way. It must fall so that families receive answers. It must fall so that perpetrators face consequences. It must fall so that rights become reality rather than rhetoric.
This campaign will be long. It will be difficult. There will be setbacks. Power does not yield without struggle. Impunity does not end without pressure. But we have something more powerful than any police unit: we have truth, we have justice on our side, we have the moral authority of victims demanding accountability, and we have the determination to see this through.
On October 20, 2020, at Lekki Toll Gate, Nigerian security forces opened fire on young people peacefully protesting police brutality. The government denied it happened. Then they admitted it but claimed no one died. Then they acknowledged deaths but said investigations were ongoing. Five years later, those investigations remain incomplete. Justice delayed has become justice denied.
We will not allow that to happen with Tiger Base. We will not allow time to erase accountability. We will not allow the usual tactics- delay, deny, and deflect- to work this time. Tiger Base must fall. And it will fall.
Thank you for being here. Thank you for bearing witness. Thank you for joining this fight. Together, we will ensure that Nigeria's commitment to human rights goes beyond words on paper. Together, we will build a Nigeria where police protect rather than prey on citizens. Together, we will make Tiger Base the last unit that operates with such complete impunity.
This is as captured from Omoyele Sowore on December 15 2025.
States Media Team
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