Gale of insecurity

“Help. I can’t shout. I’m in the bush in Ogbese, Ondo State. Kidnappers! They took five people away. I escaped. Please do something.”   T he receiver of the distress call immediately alerted the police and, on second thought, called the local hunters of his village in that axis. Eventually the story had a happy […]

“Help. I can’t shout. I’m in the bush in Ogbese, Ondo State. Kidnappers! They took five people away. I escaped. Please do something.”

 

T

he receiver of the distress call immediately alerted the police and, on second thought, called the local hunters of his village in that axis. Eventually the story had a happy ending as the hunters found the distressed caller and teamed up with the police to comb the bushes for the kidnappers’ trail.

There is no state in Nigeria that is free of either terrorism or kidnapping. Criminality has taken a novel dimension. While Boko Haram is harvesting innocent souls in the Northeast, ‘herdsmen’ of indeterminate pedigree are running riot in other parts of the country. Those who have encountered the kidnappers say they are not your regular cattle rearers or pastoralists. These ones are professional kidnappers. They are well armed, appear to be on drugs and don’t need much irritation to take a life. Indeed, when negotiating ransom with families of victims, some have been known to kill the victims while the negotiation was ongoing— simply because somebody at the other end begged for the demanded sum to be halved.

If these criminals are not Nigerians, as many people have argued, then what is Nigeria doing about them? How can foreigners be allowed to have a field day traumatising our people and overwhelming our security agencies? Samples of newspaper headlines attest to the insecurity in the land:

Police seize properties of former policeman turned kidnapper

Gunmen in military uniform kidnap governor’s aide

Gunmen invade Katsina village, kidnap 20 men

Kidnapped members of JIBWIS freed

Governor Masari raises alarm of insecurity in Katsina

Four suspected kidnappers, 2 cult kingpins arrested in A’Ibom

Police arrest wanted Boko Haram suspect in Ondo

Unknown gunmen kill APC chair, 5 others, kidnap paramount ruler in Rivers

UK issues warning to its citizens about travelling to Nigeria

NDLEA officers, Customs officer, others regain freedom after paying N2.2m ransom

DSS rescues American woman kidnapped in Lagos by social media friends

Gunmen reportedly kidnap Plateau monarch Leo Densak

Kidnappers finally free Zamfara twin sisters after collecting ransom

Four Catholic priests abducted in Delta State

Gunmen reportedly strike in Bayelsa State, abduct 4 oil workers

Baptist Pastor Hosea Akuchi killed by kidnappers

Over 51 drivers have been abducted in my state — Gov. Bagudu

Gunmen kill four police officers in Kaduna

It is a war we cannot win with the current security architecture. I have always believed that effective policing is local. Take care of the village/small community and the larger community will take care of itself. There is nothing new in decentralising the police. In the 50s and 60s we had federal police, regional police and local government police. Each one had its jurisdiction. The local police in our area knew the residents and could easily pick out a visitor. He was local. He knew all the nooks and crannies of the area. Bigger crimes were handled by the regional police while the federal police attended to federal crimes and also assisted the lower police forces whenever their help was needed. That is how policing is structured in all civilised countries.

I have argued that the problem of effective policing in Nigeria has to be tackled from the systemic point of view. A rickety structure cannot deliver lasting results. Whereas the present system may be attractive to some people because they think it favours their parochial interest, we shall all bear the brunt of the increasing spate of insecurity, especially kidnapping which has now ballooned to industrial proportions.

Adamu Mohammed, the newly appointed Acting Inspector General of Police, looks like a professional officer. His pronouncements since his appointment give the impression that he is a committed patriot who wants to excel. His appointment of Frank Mba as Force PRO also shows that he wants to run a decent administration. In the recent past, some mothers did have them!

However, the system he has to function in has not changed. New wine in old skin — no prizes for guessing the result.

Adamu has come at a time of great security challenges. He is supposed to police the entire country from his Louis Edet House Force Headquarters in Abuja. No IG has ever succeeded in effectively policing the entire country, especially the rural areas and some lonely intra-city highways. In a country where 150,000 policemen out of 371,800 have been assigned to top politicians and government officials, the masses of the people are left to rely on a wing and a prayer.

There is the tendency for every IG to resist the splitting of his ‘empire’. Adamu’s predecessors resisted any kind of structural change. They would rather preside over a rickety trailer than manage a functional saloon car. The bigger the coast the better, they think. But if Adamu deploys his intellectual resources towards finding a solution to the problem of insecurity in Nigeria, he is likely to advise the authorities to unbundle the police force. Whatever legislation that needs to be done must be done urgently before this spate of criminality becomes our defining feature.

To those who say that states are not ripe for the responsibility of running their own police services, I ask, what makes the federal government more responsible than the states? In a civilised republic, federating states should have their full complement of powers while the federal level coordinates affairs without assuming any kind of coup-leader-style supremacy.

All the same, welcome to the grind, IGP Adamu Mohammed.