Bickering over the Nigerian police

That state governors disagree comes as a surprise.  Nigerians know why it should surprise anyone. Those thirty-six Class Prefects have always banded together using  their Governors’ Forum. Through it, they harass everyone. The president. The federal ministers.  Senators and members of the House of Representatives, when election primaries are around the corner, that is. They […]

That state governors disagree comes as a surprise.  Nigerians know why it should surprise anyone. Those thirty-six Class Prefects have always banded together using  their Governors’ Forum. Through it, they harass everyone. The president. The federal ministers.  Senators and members of the House of Representatives, when election primaries are around the corner, that is. They harass Nigerians too, taking from the treasury, the national treasury, without remitting the same to their citizens. It’s not all. They appoint their own men to man local government councils.  That way, the governors deny Nigerians the right to elect their own representatives. They retain funds that belong to local council authority, effectively hijacking from the citizens what should come to them at the local level. Now it is said that the governors are quarrelling. The natural reaction of the man on the street would be, May they never agree again! But he suffers as things stand, and will still suffer more of the consequences of the actions of these guys which will cause more problems for the nation.

It was even Niger State governor who intimated the public of the wrangling.  Umuazu Babagida Aliyu. He is the chairman of Northern Governors’ Forum, NGF. He is not a stranger to controversies. They trail him like honey bees trail flowers.  Those gentlemen in NGF left a meeting not long ago. They gave Aliyu the mandate to say that he and his colleagues were opting out of an earlier agreement about creation of state police. At least, Rotimi Amaechi, the Chairman of all the thirty-six state governors said they had an agreement earlier. He said he and his colleagues had once supported the creation of state police. But one governor from the north stoked the fire further. He said his state, Plateau, was not part of the decision of the NGF, and that he agreed with Amaechi. The governors have not resolved their differences. They will yet talk when they can all gather and talk, their national chairman had said.

All this should raise questions. One of them is: Why state police? A part of the answer is in the quarrel between Captain Olubolade and the committee he had set up to look into police reform. So policing Nigeria needs to be reformed. But everyone said enough committee reports on this same issue are lying on the minister’s shelf.  But now that his committee has submitted its report, and the members recommended that the Ministry of Police Affairs be scrapped, the minister fired that he never gave the committee that kind of assignment, that it went beyond the scope of its assignment. Good. But Nigerians may ask, just as they had asked at the time a Ministry of Niger Delta was set up, Why a ministry for the police? Some will call for a ministry for the army soon, and the air force, and the navy. One day, there may be a ministry for prison, as well as road safety. It’s important to note: A status quo is already fighting back in the person of the minister whose ministry is recommended for scrapping. Entrenched self-interest in one form or the other seems to be behind the controversy surrounding the creation of state police.

The issue returns to the state governors however. The governors he represents,  according to Aliyu, say they want the police to be reformed as it is, that the power to order the state police commissioners around be given to state governors, and that such reform be placed in the constitution. So who appoints, who disciplines, and what happens when the governor gives an order and the IGP or the president counters it? The damage would have been done, in the case of an order to intervene and restore peace in troubled spots, before the concerned state governor returns from court where he has gone to seek for judicial interpretation of what the constitution says on the matter. There may be other motives for this disapproval for creation of state police. As things stand, Jonah Jang who says he is not a part of the NGF decision has been accused of being partial in the Berom-Fulani crisis in Plateau State. So the issue is clear to the disagreeing party, if such a governor has his own police, the so-called non-indigenes in his state are in for tough times. Yet, NGF wants state governors to have some control over state commissioners of police. This lacks ingenuity. Okay, a governor controls state commissioner of police, but the commissioner orders a policeman, who has just been transferred from Port-Harcourt, to effectively police neighbourhoods he knows nothing about in Gusau. Is that known perennial problem solved?

It has been said that the current security challenge in the country is helped by the fact that law enforcers do not even know their territory well. In that case, they can’t engage the populace and tap into local knowledge to prevent crimes. What the Nigerian police do at the moment can hardly be called preventive policing. What they are able to prevent can be said to be in the ‘show of force’ they put up for would-be criminals to see, rather than how much intelligence they gather to prevent crime. That may be one reason rate of crime is this high. But there are more reasons to guess that the disapproval for creation of state police force by some governors may be more informed by reasons other than what promotes national interest.

One, most states have uniformed forces that carry out what can be said to be the duties of a state police at the moment. In that case, even when some governors say they don’t want state police, they have created forces that can serve as the same tool they say they don’t want. Kano state, for instance, has Hisbah, Islamic police, that focus on implementing Islamic laws. Government funds Hisbah and the force is especially active in the Kano metropolitan environs. The force, on February 11, 2012 confiscated goods estimated at N6.5 million. The goods were alcoholic beverages. In the face of the violent attacks on Kano, the state government has changed tactics in its outlook on security issues. And that includes the adoption of the Islamic police as part of the security apparatus of the government. The Islamic police is reportedly utilized increasingly by the Kano State government to administer law and order in most parts of the State. On occasions when the police demand that Hisbah present whatever they seized, the request is turned down.

In Lagos State, and not long ago, the governor ordered officials of the Lagos State Traffic Management Authority, LASTMA, to begin the arrest of any motorist who refuses to stop at a Zebra Crossing for pedestrians to cross. That was once the duty of the Nigerian Police Force, possibly handed over at one point to the Federal Road Safety Commission, FRSC, but at the moment the governor chooses to have his own outfit implement it. There are few neighbourhoods in the country that do not have Vigilante groups that see to community security. And there are more examples to show that state governors know they need a force closer home in order to have a more effective policing. All of them have been expending huge amounts to procure security equipment for a police force that belongs to the federal government. Yet some of them bicker over expending the same resources to take care of their own police.

Ajibade, a Communications Consultant, writes in from Abuja.  [email protected]