GOVERNOR Akinwumi Ambode of Lagos State must be a generous giver. The Police can testify to that because a few weeks ago the governor, a certified accountant, had counted the cost of crime in Lagos and came to the inescapable conclusion that the Police in Lagos are ill-equipped for the job at hand and needed help. He weighed in with a hefty support for the police: 100 saloon cars, 55 Ford Ranger pick-up vans, 10 Toyota Land Cruiser pick-up vans, 115 power bikes, three helicopters, two gunboats, Isuzu Trucks, vehicular radio communication, security gadgets, bullet proof vests, siren and public address systems, helmets, handcuff, uniforms and kits. He also threw in an improved insurance and death benefit scheme. This impressive shopping list punched a N4.765 billion hole in the budget of the Lagos State Government. As he handed over the cavalcade of cars and other accessories to the Police authorities, he warned that he would not tolerate the rancidness of failure and that with these donations the police have lost the excuse for non-performance.
This has come at just the right time because for some time now violent crime has haunted Lagosians like an inscrutable mystery and we all have been living with the incubus of fear. Banks and residential buildings are raided at will and anyone who thinks his burglary-proof window is burglarproof is just living in a fool’s paradise. Those ironclad windows surrender easily to the hoodlums’ skillful use of iron cutters.
The banks have had to wonder what else they needed to do to safeguard people’s money that are locked up in bank safes which until a few years never attracted the attention of armed robbers. Today, robbers rob banks fairly easily using dynamite and gas cylinders and electricity generating sets. When they get caught and they begin to sing like a nightingale, you wonder whether such lowly educated fellows were the same ones that patiently planned and successfully executed such plans. With Ambode’s good gesture we have a right to think that our salvation is knocking at the door.
What the governor has done – which almost all the state governors are doing – indicates that the Federal Government is unable to equip the police properly to safeguard our lives and properties. The governor of any state is said to be the chief executive officer of that state. He works with the state’s commissioner of police (CP) to keep the state safe, yet he has no operational control over the CP. This power lies elsewhere. So why do states fund a police force that they have no control over? It is because their people will hold the governor responsible for what is amiss in the state. This funding aspect of police administration is, among others, the strongest argument for the establishment of state police.
This matter has been a favourite subject among the educated elite for many years. Today, with the upsurge in crime especially such opportunistic crimes as armed robbery and kidnapping, the subject has become even more relevant. But let’s look at the arguments on both sides of the debate.
The opponents of state police have always emphasised that state political leaders will use it to intimidate their political opponents. There is a hidden assumption in this argument that the Federal Government has more integrity than state governments. This is unproven. In fact, in this republic, the Federal Government had used the federal police several times to intimidate its political opponents. There is also another hidden assumption that the media, judiciary, Labour Congress, opposition parties and civil society groups will remain meekly silent while a state government rides roughshod over the citizens. This is unlikely to be the case because of the plurality of media ownership, civil society groups, the judiciary and the proactive stance of our civil population.
The opponents also state that only a few states will be able to fund state police. The truth is that at present federal and state governments jointly fund the police in all the states. The state governments will only need to make a little additional fund to what they are spending now on the Federal Police.
There is also the view that there will be conflict in operational jurisdiction between the two police forces. Such conflicts, if and when they do arise, can be amicably resolved. After all, even now, the Federal Police and Army do have clashes from time to time and no serious damage has been done to the reputation or the integrity of any of them.
The other argument of the opponents is that the establishment of State Police will be a quick way of laying a foundation for the break-up of Nigeria. This is far-fetched because the Army will still remain the dominant coercion force in the country. Besides, it is not easy to break up a country as our experience of 1967-70 proves. For a country to stay united and not be tempted with the possibility of a break-up all hands must be on deck, people must be made to feel that they belong; injustice must be looked into and remedied. It seems pretty certain that Nigerians are not asking for a break-up; what they are asking for is fairness to all and sundry.
Without an iota of doubt, I believe the establishment of State Police is good for the country for several reasons. One, State Police is likely to do better intelligence work since they know the lay of the land and will be able to speak the local language better than non-indigenes.
Secondly, there will be cooperation and partnership between the State and Federal Police in security matters since it is in the interest of both of them to cooperate for success.
Besides, some of the state governments have their own vigilante groups or something akin to state police established by law. Where law does not establish them the state governments still use them alongside the Federal Police. For example, Hisbah is the Sharia Police in Kano and it works hand in gloves with the Federal Police. In the Southwest, there is the OPC; in the Southeast there are the Bakassi Boys and in the Southsouth there are the Egbesu Boys. These informal semi-police outfits exist in various parts of the country. Their existence underlines the fact that there is a policing gap, which they, legal or non-legal, are filling admirably. If that is so, why don’t we go the whole hog and allow the states to establish a police force of their own by law, which can be regulated and policed by a Police Service Commission. Right now a lot of these para-military groups are operating whimsically and arbitrarily.
A few years ago, I was invited by the Abia State Government to a project commissioning ceremony. In the governor’s entourage were some barrel-chested guys brandishing their machetes. I asked one of them what he was doing with the machete. He said that he uses it to determine who is guilty of an offence. How? He said that if someone were brought to him for committing an offence, he would use the knife on him. If he was guilty, his blood would flow but if he was not guilty and he used the knife on him nothing would happen to him. The knife would not hurt him. My view is that it is better to use people recruited and trained specifically for that purpose rather than resort to knife-wielding thugs whose methods resemble those of the underworld.
Perhaps the most important argument for supporting state police is the fact that the country is seriously under-policed. The United Nations minimum prescription is a ratio of one policeman to 400 persons. Nigeria has a population of about 180 million, which by the UN prescription should have at least 450, 000 policemen and women. What we have now is about 300, 000 which means that we are short by at least 150, 000 policemen.
Last year, President Muhammadu Buhari approved the recruitment of 10,000 additional policemen. That is still a far cry from what we need. Even with the present low figure the Federal Government has not been able to take care of them. Some policemen come to work in torn uniforms. Some wear bathroom slippers to work; the rain drenches some, because they have no raincoats. Sometimes they are owed salaries for months. That is why we have had at least twice now the strange spectacle of policemen threatening to go on strike. But if the state governments establish their own police forces, the increased total number from the two police forces will narrow the policing gap and reduce the volume of crime in the country.
My final argument for the establishment of State Police is that if state governments have State Police, there will be a balance of terror. During the cold war America and USSR were busy throwing verbal bombs at each other but none of them attacked each other because each knew that the other had weapons of mass destruction.
Our federation is a very peculiar one. We know that we are heterogeneous in many ways, but we want to make uniform, homogenous prescriptions for the country: price of petroleum products, salaries and wages, water and electricity tariffs, telephone charges etc. Isn’t that why this federation is limping?
State Police is a desideratum.
GUARDIAN
END
Be the first to comment