The deficiency in the management of police profession in Nigeria is emblematic of the general malaise of Nigeria Society. A society reeking with myriads of imbalances-where the poor walk miles to get food, and the rich walk meters to digest food, a system that appoints mediocres as administrative heads and make graduates to act as a stooge, a country where over half of police force escorts fragment of rich individuals at the detriment of the security of larger population. And the list goes on. You need not look deeper before noticing these brazen impartiality in different forms and in every quarters. And it were they try to justify the imbalances.
Police authorities constantly defend their poor performance by claiming a shortage of personnel, equipment and operational funds. While undoubtedly true, it’s also true that their mobile force is not being utilized to its maximum. There appears to be an over concentration on escorting, protecting and guarding “big men.”
The issue has once more been brought to the fore by the directive given recently by President Muhammadu Buhari that the over 130,000 police personal attached to unauthorized persons and VIPs in the country, be withdrawn and deployed to confront the serious security challenges in the nation.
Of course, Nigerian politicians are never harmed by members of the public in the name of public interest, the only people they have to fear is themselves as they are always victims of their own struggles for power. They feel they are the target, so they acquire 10 to 12 policemen to guard them. If their hands are clean, not soiled with dirty deeds and we concentrate on watertight security they would not need so much police personnel.
In saner clines, only the leader of the government and his deputy merit special visible protection. Other political leaders are entitled to just one or at most two specially trained invisible protection officers. In an ideal society, security agencies concentrate their efforts on making society equally safe for everyone not just safe for selected few, as it is obtained in Nigeria. Or how best can we explain the situation in which the police force of over 300,000 has more than half to escort the dignitaries, how many are left for the 170 million other Nigerians?
This is a pointer to the loopholes and lapses in our security system created and botchedly managed by the political leaders who should be the first, not the last, to suffer the insecurities of the society they have created.
All the unnecessary multiple escorts, siren-blowing razzmatazz prevalent in Nigeria are indicative of unrestrained self – importance. Police escorts sporadically kill innocent bystanders with their mindless driving and indiscriminate use of weapon, routinely endangering the lives of those they swore to protect. They drive on the wrong side of the road, fail to obey traffic signal, harass other motorists, and do everything to possible to impress the big man and to prove that whoever they are escorting is above the law.
One of the cogent reasons forwarded for the formation of the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) was the idea that all police personnel employed to guard political leaders, their homes, and families would be replaced with Civil Defence Corps.
This has not happened, instead, unauthorized uniformed mobile police make brisk business posing as unofficial escorts. The general public is fed up with this indiscipline, and the Nigeria police force loses a lot of goodwill by their virtual lawlessness. It is time our security agencies adopted a more professional, less visible, less publicly offensives, and more civilized method of VIP protection.
United States addressed the allocation of police men as security details to VIPs by creating the secret service for their protection.
How can 400,000 policemen police a nation of about 170 million? A huge number of these are personal security to very important personalities.
Also in the wake of the recruitment of 10,000 police officers, there is an imperative need to restructure its recruitment procedure in the light of the soaring rate of unemployment. This will afford them the opportunity to know who really have the interest and passionate about the job and those who apply out of frustration of joblessness. Because when you give a weapon of mass destruction to a frustrated police officers he is bound to take the anger out on the hapless civilians.
And more importantly, especially with the people at the lower rank there is a need to really flush out, reorientate and repackage Nigerian Police so that it can exude the image of discipline and professionalism.
Police have a problem of perception that had robbed off on their self– perception and their perception by the public. The image of the police as our ‘friend’ as it were has enabled the general public to repose little or no confidence in the force.
Most times it is the lower rank officers that are always caught in the web of indiscipline – you see them wearing palm sandals, carrying AK 47 on their necks like pendant, we have even seen on social media an officer using AK 47 as walking stick and another picture as a chair as if they were won-lethal weapon. Police reform should also focus on the training and re-training of the rank and file to make them better in their job. They should come up with policies that will motivate the rank and file to bring their best in the service of their fatherland.
A well – motivate force could be the magic wand that would turn the fortunes of the force for good. And like wise punitive measures should be melted to those that err. Police force is a wonderful institution whose image and existence is threatened by indiscipline.