By Emmanuel Oladesu
Three decades after the crusade for restructuring started, reality has dawned on Nigeria about the cumulative consequences of over-centralisation of power in a highly heterogeneous unitary nation-state masquerading as a federation.
Fretting under the yoke of terror, the country is now considering the path hitherto neglected. The fear of banditry has become the beginning of wisdom. What has motivated the Federal Government’s decision to adopt a paradigm shift and revolutionise policing is that in the last 10 years, the country has not been at peace. It has continued to battle, without much success, with farmer-herder clashes, kidnapping for ransom, killings and other forms of violence. Thousands of people have lost their lives; property worth billions have been destroyed, law and order have broken down, and there have been disruptions of socio-economic activities. Life has become harsh, short, and brutish. Many Nigerians live daily in fear. There appears to be no end in sight to the confusion
While previous power-loaded Executive Presidents glossed over the issue of national importance, history would be kind to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for encouraging the Federal Government to shed weight and devolve power to the sub-national units through the transfer of some items from the Exclusive List to the Concurrent List.It may be the baseline for the resolution of an aspect of the National Question.
If decentralised or multi-layer policing had been considered, perhaps, the country would have been safer for it. The security architecture would have waxed stronger and come in handy as a formidable institutionalised force to ward off the threat of multiple violence unleashed on Nigerians across the country by those who have developed a buoyant economy around terrorism. Demographics
Even, when Southwest governors came together to float Amotekun as a regional security outfit, the effort was thwarted by the Federal Government. The agency emerged from the federal/regional rapport after the confrontation as a weak institution, a dog that could bark but could not bite much.
Many benefits would accrue to Nigeria from the operation of the long envisaged state police.
The gap in the police-to-citizen ratio, which is currently approximately 1:650, is expected to be bridged. A single police officer for every 650 Nigerians falls short of the United Nations’ recommended standard of 1:460.
Police availability is a factor in adequacy of security. As the population grows in geometric proportions, with an overwhelming demand for the protection of life and property, the size of the police is over-stretched and weakened, and the personnel is painfully immobile, incapable, under-productive and grossly inefficient.
State police, therefore, implies that more police formations would be established, more people would be recruited and law and order would be better maintained.
It also implies increased budgeting for security as an important component of public welfare. The recruitment of qualified youths into the state police translates into job creation on a large scale, if most of the states agree to embrace the initiative. If it is optional, neighbouring states that delay the setting up of state police may become vulnerable. At a time in Lagos, when the heat was turned on armed robbers, they ran to Ogun to terrorise innocent people, until the state government also took concerted steps to send these men of underworld packing. Demographics
The most projected gain of state policing is intelligence gathering for the purpose of detecting, bursting and preventing crime. The assumption is that when people who know the environment very well serve as police officers, it would be relatively easier to nip potential criminal activities in the bud and round up criminal elements at the level of conception or contemplation.
However, government should pay attention to three imperatives. First, in a nation that has declared an emergency on security, state police is capital-intensive, and state governments should brace up for the challenge of funding. If the policing structure is set up without adequate tools, it would be difficult for it to make any impact across the states. Efforts to make things work effectively would only pale into mere rhetoric.
Second, from the onset, a standard of professional discipline should be established and incorporated into the new security architecture to ensure that state police does not become another peculiar mess, a corrupt and decadent institution; a terrible perception the few bad eggs in the current centralised federal police have attracted.
In states and regions ravaged by terrorism, those who would recruit young men into the state police should ensure that there is no infiltration of bandits and other criminals into the structures. How repentant are the so-called repentant terrorists who announce that they have surrendered to the law only to return to their violent acts in a short while?
Third, state police may now reflect the identities that make each state-based policing structure very distinct. Today, the federal police is known, identified and recognised through their identical uniforms. Are state policemen likely to adopt the same uniform nationwide or would each state opt for distinct, differential colours?
In a nutshell, the proposed state police, in whatever form it may come, portends three implications. More police formations with the right and adequate equipment are expected to spring up, with more policemen recruited to address the manpower deficit or gap. Also, policing would now be adapted to local needs and peculiarities. Most importantly, the state police has to be adequately funded.
It may be the retracing of steps to the federal principle, with nostalgia. In the First Republic, Nigeria, made up of three, and later, four regions, had distinct regional policing structures, with the Nigeria Police Force at the centre being managed by the Federal Government. They were later nationalised, following the military intervention in politics.
Today, governors are being blackmailed when discussions focus on funding, sustainability and abuse. This is because the First and Second Republics were characterised by intolerance among politicians and manipulation of the police was perceived as a sign of exercising power by the party in power. In their bid to gain or maintain political power, the politicians employed the police to unleash violence on their opponents.
In the First Republic, the government of Western Nigeria embarked on mass recruitment of thugs and party stalwarts into local authority police to intimidate and oppress their rivals.
Also, in the Northern Region during the same period, political opponents were arrested by native authority police, handcuffed or chained and marched through the streets.
According to scholars, it was the carry-over of the colonial brutality into which early politicians were indoctrinated. Indeed, the colonial state was authoritarian, largely intolerant of opposition.
Also, early leaders perceived the police as an instrument for regime protection. Thus, policemen became bodyguards or thugs of the power holders, who enjoyed immunity from the long arm of justice whenever they committed illegal acts.
Consequently, regional policemen identified with the ruling party, which rewarded them for oppressing and bullying political opponents with financial inducement and career advancement through subjective promotions.
Under the prolonged military rule, the development of police was also stifled. Although more state police commands were established following state creation, military leaders focused more on the military wing of the Armed Forces than their para-military rivals. That attitude was carried over to the Fourth Republic.
Today’s awful picture of the overcentralised police is incompatible with federalism. The police is an overworked agency, demoralised and structurally denied of the motivation to work. It lacks the required numerical strength to police a country of over 200 million people. Many policemen are not proud of their calling. Their presence, unlike before, does not evoke respect in the community.
With state police, governors would no longer be decorative chief security officers. While governors have been providing guns, patrol vehicles and other tools for the police, policemen are only accountable to the Federal Government. Governors can issue directives to police commissioners in their states, but the commissioners have to take clearance from the distant Inspector-General of Police (IGP) in Abuja before compliance. This would stop.
Of importance is the environmental requirements of policing. Under the state policing structure, policemen are not expected to be posted to areas where they may be handicapped by language barriers and knowledge of geography and sociology of the people and localities they are expected to protect.
Uniformity of the state police across states is naturally not expected because the new structures should be dictated by peculiarities, identities, needs, and specific circumstances that distinguish the diverse regions, states and local governments.
If state or community implies that the local environment is the focal point, this factor should reflect in the recruitment, composition and control of this security agency. The assumption is that policemen should develop emotional attachment to the community, which they know perfectly, thereby making intelligence gathering much easier.
Some pertinent questions thus arise over the modalities for establishing the state police. What is the essence of posting a Kanuri as a policeman to police Ijebu or Egba in Ogun State? How can a policeman of Enugu origin perform excellently while on police duty in Nupe, Tiv and Hausa/ Fulani states? Will language not be a barrier? Does he know the geography, sociology and custom of his place of assignment?
But should state police also be ethnic or religious-based? Should it merely be pro-political elite?
Between now and when the necessary laws are passed, the debate continues. Meanwhile, everyone has a role to play in the establishment of the state police structure. We should ask and answer more questions in line with the law to ensure that the modus operandi of this vital security agency does not create more issues than it is established to solve. Besides the legislation that will guide the operation of the state police, the mindset and orientation of the recruits into this vital security agency are paramount. An agency is as good or as bad as the people running it. Now is the time to bring the issues to the table for everyone to review and address before operationalisation.
NOTE: Views expressed by contributors are strictly personal and not of Theliberationnews
