As far as I am concerned, no tangible reform has taken place in the Nigeria Police Force. What we call reforms are just panicky measures that the Inspector-General of Police is taking for political reasons or to protect his office. This is because of the previous grievous allegations of misconduct leveled against him and his men.
You know that these reforms or measures being taken now stem from the removal of the former Director-General of the DSS, Lawal Daura. The IG may feel he is the next in line.
Honestly, I think the President needs to re-jig the leadership of the security architecture in this country, not only the DSS. Most particularly, the police needs a re-adjustment. This is because the police are statutorily charged with the maintenance of law and order in the country and this is their primary duty.
But when you see this security agency overtly playing politics, it spells danger not only to the polity, but also to our country. So, the police are embarking on panicky measures to redeem themselves.
The police authorities are trying to remedy the damage done to the force because I must tell you that a lot of damage has been done to the police.
I don’t believe in their reforms. If there were to be viable reforms, we would see changes in the Police Service Commission that is statutorily charged with the administration, discipline and promotion of officers and the IG has the operational control.
The police have been seen many times to be compromised under this present administration in terms of standard. I have not been critical of the police like this, but this country belongs to all of us and we have a duty to save it from the impending danger.
The security agencies, most especially the police, must try as much as possible to detach themselves from politics. That should be the beginning of the reforms.
Mr Salaudeen Hashim (The Secretary of the National Peace and Security Forum)
Reforms without addressing systemic gaps are unlikely to yield the desired results. The police needs to address human capacity and further strengthen its capability to respond to emergencies. The way and manner the reform is coming is actually a knee jack approach. They have not thought through the process and what you get at the end of this would be massive non-compliance. As a matter of fact, nothing is speaking to its modus operandi, which is very fundamental to the citizens. I think it is high time to convene the police council. This body needs to develop strategic roadmap towards a modern policing structure. Otherwise, we shall continue to wallow in the colonial policing system we have refused to jettison simply because it is convenient for some people to perpetrate corruption.
The reforms should bring onboard adequate external oversight as a panacea for reinforcing a new police service. I used police service because there is a need for the reform to also embrace a paradigm in its name. A police force tells you we still live behind civilisation. We need to be forward thinking as a nation that wants an internal security that is efficient.
If we do a perception study of how the police have fared in Nigeria, we all know what the result of such exercise would look like. Therefore, a reform that is not targeting citizens’ ownership of the policing system needs to be given a rethink. To go a step further, what we have also noticed is the weakness of citizens involvement in the decision-making process of policing. The current architecture has provided a passive role for citizens.
Mr Tony Oghoghorie (Executive Director, Trapex Security Consultants Limited)
The most touching reform has been the Federal-SARS and for me, it is too early to give an evaluation. However, the F-SARS men touched the lives of the people, especially the vast majority of the youths. It is for that reason that you have seen a backlash over the matter on the social media. In response to the backlash, the Inspector-General of Police matched words with action which resulted in ongoing reforms to check the excesses of the men. The IGP touched key areas in his reforms, and to that extent, they are doing well. What is left is to wait to see what the effect of the reforms already put in place would be. As pointed out earlier, it is too early to start measuring the effect. Yes, they have put a few policies in motion that may neither be here nor there, but I see an attempt to align that with the administration of criminal justice which is the right procedure for doing a lot of things right. However, I think we would still have to wait to assess the situation.
Professor Beke Sese (Lecturer, Niger Delta University)
IF you are introducing a reform in the Police, the only way you can assess if it is working or not is the manifestation in the area of increased security. If there is any reform in the police, the people must see the result. For now, we have not seen any.
Everybody agrees that that security outfit requires reform, but on the IGP’s reform, I think it is a bit early to say if it is working or not. As long as we still witness insecurity across the country, there is still a lot of work to be done. That is the way I look at it and this is because policing in Nigeria is a big problem.
We are several years behind. We have not reached a stage in this country where anybody, no matter how highly placed, if you are caught in the act of killing or any other crime, you pay for it. Once we get to that stage, we can now say that we are getting the results of police reform. But today, someone can just kill somebody in Nigeria and get away with it.
We also have a police force that does not do investigation and we must get away from this stage where there is a crime, it is the same police that will go and destroy evidence at the crime scene out of ignorance. Every day, we see armed robbers being arrested and they (police) will say they (armed robbers) made confessional statements, but the world has gone scientific.
We have things like forensic investigation; once they bring in modern technology into policing our society, everybody will know that if you kill somebody or you steal, you will be caught. Those are the reforms we want to see and not to be changing uniforms or colours.
Abubakar Tsav (A Commissioner of Police, retd.)
Merely changing nomenclature like was recently done with the Federal Special Anti-Robbery Squad will not solve the problem. The problem is with the men; it is the attitude of the people within the system that should be changed. They should be retrained and a code of conduct for their operations should be clearly spelt out and it should be enforced every now and then. I also think we have a problem with supervision in the police force; we need better supervision. Let officers properly supervise their men and ensure that they do the right things at the right time and then enforce discipline. Like the recent case of these boys who were dismissed for their role in the search of Chief Edwin Clark’s house; they must have acted in superior instructions. Now, who instructed them to search the house? Police authorities should find out who gave the instructions, they should not make a scape goat of those boys. They should try to find out who detailed them. I read that Chief Clark said, one of his companions called an Assistant Inspector-General of Police and the AIG spoke to the people who went to search the house. Despite that, they continued searching the house. It means that they were acting on superior instructions.
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