There have been several arguments for and against the establishment of State Police in Nigeria. The arguments are not in the realm of individual Nigerians, it is also going on at various state and non-state actors’ levels.
Recent happenings in the country have further upped the ante for the promoters of the call. The arguments became stronger when the Vice President Yemi Osinbajo recently threw his weight behind the adoption of state police as the way to go in meeting security needs of the country.
The Vice President at a National Security Summit organized by the National Assembly stated that “state police and other policing methods are clearly the way to go.’’
Without any equivocations, I wholeheartedly agree with the Vice President that every Nigerian was entitled to adequate security by government and that the security failures of the government were not deliberate.
This is also coming at a time when Nigerians are calling for the “restructuring of the country”. Some prefer to use the words, “restructuring governance” in the country. Interestingly too, most Nigerians concur that we need change in many aspects of our national life and national institutions. But in my considered opinion, for us to make progress, we needed urgent and revolutionary change in many aspects of our national life most especially, in the area of Police (Force or Service). This is because Nigeria Police is fully symptomatic of what is bedeviling Nigeria and, therefore, if we get the Police right, a couple of other issues where we are failing will fall into shape. Two quick points:
First, is the issue of insecuritywhich has kept every Nigerian and foreigners in the country on their toes watching their backs. When Boko Haram started several years ago, they targeted the Christian community, killing and maiming Christians in Northern Nigeria, burning churches and their houses. Their sponsors and some unpatriotic Muslims in the North were happy and celebrating them. They did not see the need to condemn their atrocities. Some didn’t hide their support for them even while the security agencies watched helplessly. In fact, the security agencies were themselves polarized along religious divides. Some were even aiding and abetting, providing cover for their mayhems.
Sadly, they didn’t know they were nourishing a monster and that they were sure going to end up in his stomach. As the orgy of violence was allowed consciously or unconsciously to grow and degenerate, they started killing their fellow Muslims and slaughtering Imams that did not adopt their fanaticism. They were now bombing mosques and even made a deadly attempt on the life of Muhammadu Buhari in Kaduna. That was when they began to feel that it was wrong to have bred the insurgents.
The issue everywhere in today’s Nigeria is that of the herdsmen. Like their Boko Haram co-travelers, they started by killing Christians and destroying their farms willfully. Regrettably again, some unpatriotic but powerful Northern Muslims were applauding them, including some in power. The leadership of the nation’s security apparatuses made matters worse as they came out full force defending the killings. One of them who had refused the President’s directive to relocate to Benue which was boiling with the slaughtering of Christians by the killer herdsmen had told bewildered Nigerians that it was the anti-grazing law that was responsible for the killings and that unless the anti-grazing law was abolished, there was nothing he and his agency could do and so, the slaughtering continued. His other colleagues would come out and speak in the same vain. They forget that there is tomorrow, they forget that we are living in a circular country, they forget that power is transient in the hands of man as all powers belong to God.
Now, before their eyes and while still in government, the murderers they have been giving tactical shield have taken their psychosisto Adamawa, Plateau, Zamafara, Kogi, and most recently Sokoto states that never introduced anti-grazing laws. In Zamfara, they have destroyed so many farming communities and killed hundreds of innocent and defenseless citizens. In Sokoto, which has enjoyed relative peace since the madness in Northern Nigeria, over 40 persons were recently mauled to death. In Zamfara they massacred 36 people in a farming community in one day and since then hundred more and more farming communities have been destroyed and all Muslims.
On the contrary, when the government wanted to deal with security challenge posed by theIPOB it was done with military meticulousness. They were dealt with summarily and the body proscribed. Now, Miyeti Allah, the herdsmen group that has been largely responsible for the killings have been left boasting around and thumping their chests that they will kill more if their wishes are not served. Government has been treating them like special brides. Government is even plotting how to spend national budget on their businesses and are even maneuvering to even collect lands belonging to Nigerians to serve them to feed their cattle.
It is obvious, therefore, that there was problem with the Nation’s policing arrangement that needed urgent surgical attention. This has fueled the agitation for State Police, which I wholeheartedly lend my support to.
Secondly, our dismal low position on the Transparency International global Corruption Perception Index (CPI) annually is largely influenced by the tragic picture of our Policemen extracting money from drivers and other road users in the full glare of the public. Interestingly, the current administration rode to power on the back of anti-corruption promises. Since the inception of the government, it has waged war against large scale corruption and money laundering recovering huge sums of money from suspects who stole the nation blind, particularly from the inept and corrupt regime of the ill-fated Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.
But corruption is going on steadily in the Nigeria police whose personnel compel Nigerians at check points to offer bribes to them to keep going. The high and mighty in the police have not seen anything wrong with that. The government has also not addressed the issue.
It will, therefore, be important to take a critical look at the current police structure and institution and carry out a surgical operation in the system and make it work. In the early 1970s and even eighties, people hadn’t much problem with the Nigeria Police Force. Security Challenges were not as rife as we have them today. There was motivation for all class of workers, including the police.
The pitiable state of affairs of the Nigeria police there call for the need for all stakeholders to intervene. This time, the state governments should be empowered by the nation’s grand norm to establish their own police to be able to deal with security challenges confronting the nation at the state and local government level as practiced in other democracies.
The Chairman of the Governors’ Forum, and Governor of Zamfara State, AbulazizYariat the end of the security summit in Abuja some time agosaid the Governors’ Forum had endorsed the idea of state police since 2015 but the division within it at that time made it difficult for them to marshal further action on it. The position of the governors also tallies with the resolution of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) on restructuring.
The arguments that if Governors are allowed to establish state police they would use it to achieve political purposes does not hold water at all. This has been the argument by the opponents of state police since 1960 when Nigeria gained her independence, but the federal government has not ceased to use the federal police against perceived political opponents since then.
Our focus, with both the issue of Federal and State police should therefore be to continuously improve our military and police into an apolitical, professional and efficient force to carry out their responsibilities under Section 217 (2) (a) (b) (c) and (d) of the constitution and the amendment being proposed by this treatise.So, I contend that we need to confront our fears on the issue of State Police head on and now is the time to do so.
____________
Mr. Dan Owegie is a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Edo State.
