If the police were properly equipped…

It is a reality that many police and other security officers have been killed in that deadly ambush by those we were told are Eggon youths who successfully ambushed the police men and reigned bullets on their vehicles that resulted in that fatal casualty. There is no political deduction that can under any circumstance attempt exculpating those who perpetrated this crime against humanity and the Nigerian state. It is now left to the government to either act appropriately or allow the situation aggravate which may lead to another declaration of state of emergency.

Like joke, that was how the Nigerian state began the treatment of the Boko Haram insurgency which has now assumed a national dimension and if care is not taken it may be the albatross that may eventually see the doom if not just our alliance but our lives as a whole. Those in charge need to think and do more otherwise we are not the only people in suspense; they too are very unsafe if they don’t know.

When the Alozie Ogugbuaja pepper soup theory and scandal erupted in the late 1980s under the regime of General Ibrahim Babangida, the government and the military were only agree because a young police officer was bold enough to face it straight ad tell it the bitter truth. As a refresher and information especially to the young ones, the Alozie beer and pepper soup comment emerged from a testimony by a young police officer who bemoaned the state of the NIGERIAN police and its inability to be effective and attributed such plight to the failure of government to invest appropriately and raise the morale of the force.

According to Alozie, the police are much more important to the country at peace time. Its inability to meet up to the challenges of ensuring a secured society is because government was spending more money on the soldiers who would go to the office in the morning and close by 12 noon or 1pm only to retire to mess for beer and pepper soup. The military authorities didn’t find that as a joke and the rest is no history and the nation is bleeding.

Before Alozie who I understand was an Assistant Superintendent of Police was a popular thesis that went round as one of the reasons that led to the over throw of the Shagari administration in 1983. The thesis held that on seeing the massive funding and arming that the police by Shagari government, the soldiers became uncomfortable and as such overthrew the government before the police force could be made so powerful to the extent of possibly rendering the armed forces incapable of staging any military coup. We all saw what happened and since then, the Nigerian Police has faced a downward slide in terms of funding, equipment and training to the extent that governments today seem to have reduced funding of the force to mere procurement of vehicles that are destroyed within the year, as to the morale of the officers and men, I am not sure any serious attention is given it and a sure for fault not that of the police high command but of government at the top.

Such a treatment by the nation in my view explains why and how armed youth could ambush law enforcement officers and men and annihilate them in such a brutal manner. The situation to me suggests the helpless nature of the police command in this country and the development is more frightening that it simply meets the naked eyes.

In my view, there is the urgent need for reprioritization by the political establishment. I am of the view that the funding of the military is a misplacement of priority in view of the role that they play in maintaining peace and security of the nation in peace time. This is clearly shown by the degree of catastrophe that the army is causing in those areas where insurgency is the order of the day especially in Northern Nigeria.

What the soldiers have done in crises turn areas since the return to civil rule in 1999 has been traumatic. In Odi, Zaki Biam and recently Baga in Borno state were definite statements of the underdeveloped nature of the military high command. The thesis that soldiers don’t understand anything but death is archaic and outdated. One of the major attributes in military doctrine and training all over the world including Nigeria is the emphasis on subordination to civil authority and increasing cordiality in civil military relations.

We have seen how the advanced world that our leaders desperate desire to copy have treated abuses by their solders in war-torn areas such as Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. In our clime, the military high command in alliance with the political authorities connived and committed extra judicial murders. The cases mentioned earlier are very clear examples. These murders I am sure will be challenged in the not distant future at the appropriate fora.

In the meantime, I am of the view that the police high command seem helpless in view of the weak attention that the force receives from the Nigerian state and this must change if truly the adage which sees the police as the friend to all is to be practical and relevant. As it stands, the force is toothless and can only pretend to be doing well.

It is the inherent weak attention that the force suffers from that has resulted in this unfortunate national insecurity. If truly the soldiers are too brutal to understand the meaning of engagement, then, it is necessary that the police force is attended to so that effective human relation in the management of conflict and possibly nipping it in a bud takes precedence and minor issues do not degenerate into full scale insurrection as we have in our hands today.

Now that President Jonathan has deployed soldiers to Borno, Yobe and Adamawa states, we are watching and any abuses committed would certainly be brought to the attention of the world. Those committed already are on record ad cannot be swept under the carpet.

My sympathies go to the Inspector General of Police and the families of all those who were victims of the failures of the nation’s political leadership. Things have to change and for the better if Nigeria is to know and have peace now and in the future. It may be difficult are even impossible to have peace as soon as we may want to but the thing to do is to begin massive investment in it now so as to secure the future.

In my view one such investment will be to properly reorient the Nigeria Police through effective funding for training, strategy and logistics. This to me would serve better purposes than the current state of over reliance on the military to deal with civil matters. The result is thus massive casualty and escalation of hostilities. I am fond of this statement by Thomas Sankara, the former president of Burkina Faso that ‘ a soldier without genuine political education is a potential criminal’.

The need to reorient the nation’s armed forces is also very imperative so that they understand the logic and essentials of contemporary rules of engagement at times of insurrection, war and peace. Nigeria cannot afford to continue to play its own game its own way. This is dangerous and unacceptable to modern dictum of governances.

Those who ambushed the police and killed them in Nasarawa state must be fished out and brought to book. Failure to do so would be tantamount to licensing brutal force against those who by power and authority are entitled to deploy force on erring citizens as at when due. The Nasarawa episode is dastardly and condemnable and Nigerians must desist from such acts of barbarism under whatever guise.

To return to the main theme, if the political authorities recognized the essence of an effective police force and funded its personnel and provided with the right tools, we would not have been in this mess today, and there would have been no need to call in the army anytime there is a hint of trouble.

God save the nation in the face of evident incapacities of its leaders.