Inefficacy of cheque-points (First published on November 18, 2011)

The assumption underlying the efficacy of a road block is that everyone-criminals included-uses the road; and on the road, today or tomorrow, the criminal will be caught. But in order for this argument in support of security checkpoints to prevail and be justified in the eyes of those made to suffer its excesses, there must […]

The assumption underlying the efficacy of a road block is that everyone-criminals included-uses the road; and on the road, today or tomorrow, the criminal will be caught. But in order for this argument in support of security checkpoints to prevail and be justified in the eyes of those made to suffer its excesses, there must point to specific facts to support reasonable suspicion of criminal activity or the probability of actual criminal conduct; otherwise its conduct will punish the guilty and the innocent equally. In this, there is in fact the possibility that only the innocent are being punished by checkpoints, because for the guilty, the checkpoints are the roads not taken.
In order to avoid other inevitable problems, once in operation, checkpoints must be conducted in a non-arbitrary manner, with as little disruption as possible to highway traffic. To retain them it will be necessary to show that they continue to serve some demonstrable public purpose. In order to achieve this, roadblocks must be conducted according to known and acceptable guidelines, and those charged with manning the checkpoints are properly trained and experienced in civil-paramilitary interactions, and every effort is made to ensure that in the vicinity of the roadblocks, public safety is promoted and maintained. Arbitrariness will only feed the growing resentment.
But it is curious indeed if the erection of roadblocks is all that there is to the solution to Nigeria’s parlous security situation. With the leadership of Nigeria’s soldiers trained at some of the world’s best military institutions, with its police officers prized as instructors at police academies around the world, and its intelligence community perhaps no less well-trained, and with all this sophistication, training and experience, isn’t it shocking that the only solution Nigeria’s intelligence fraternity can think of to counter the serious, multiple, recurring, existential threats facing the country is to just hurriedly erect checkpoints on highways and expect the problem to simply go away?
It is certainly time for the government to begin to rethink checkpoints, especially in view of the great resentment they are causing all over the country, but more especially on the approach to Abuja; and try to put in place viable alternatives that may prove more efficacious. Even at the best of times, checkpoints are of limited and doubtful utility, and, even worse, the highhanded manner in which they are conducted serves to make them downright harmful and counterproductive for the government.
And what is even worse is that in Nigeria, checkpoints are not like those in other sane societies. No doubt, there are checkpoints, but these come either as cheek-points or cheque-points: at the former to display some cheek to intimidate passersby, and at the latter to collect cash from intimidated givers. And what cheek they have, and what offerings they garner! They are avenues of collisions and venues for corruption-business as usual for the police; and for the soldiers, unable to beat the police, they joined them in collecting small change along highways; and they have beaten them at it and they now beat them to it.
It should be obvious that for the government, there is pretty little for it to gain in hurrying to erect checkpoints all over the country in the routine, perfunctory and business-as-usual manner in which it has always chosen to do this. What have they stopped? Checkpoints have not stopped Boko Haram, nor have they deterred ethnic genocidalists, or put an end to the exploits of night marauders, or sundry dangerous criminals from operating with so much impunity. But checkpoints can always be counted on to inflame the people against the leadership, especially when, as a matter of routine, members of the leadership class are siren-whisked past a resentful, queue-weary citizenry.
As cheek-points, they make the people even more embittered; as cheque-points, they make them far more vulnerable to the scourge of the great unknown. They don’t stop anything; they are just a check, if they are, on speed and not on crime. They have become the cause of unnecessary traffic jams and fatal accidents, especially with those barricades of logs and tyres that have effectively turned our highways into zigzagging twists and turns of preventable death-traps. So, what really is their point?
Often, on very bad days, the checkpoints on the outskirts of Abuja in all directions-Suleja, Nyanya and Gwagwalada-can sometimes be several kilometres long; and, along with others like it, they have in fact become venues for collisions and avenues for corruption. And may God forbid the coming of that day when the brakes of a speeding oncoming loaded trailer fails as happened on a small scale in a Nyanya jam with more than 20 dead. The toll along Suleja road would be too horrific to contemplate.
Since the primary goal of government is to ease people’s gratuitous hardship, these fixed road blocks should be dismantled forthwith; because they are most assuredly ineffective for the purposes for which they have been put in place. Random roadblocks with an element of surprise will prove more effective in catching potential bombers and other criminals, because even the most foolish would-be bomber would try to avoid and circumvent the fixed, permanent checkpoints that he already knows.
A mobile patrol along the highway will be more useful. Using random sampling to stop and search persons, vehicles or circumstances that arouse legitimate suspicion, patrols will prove infinitely more useful for the government, and, for the people, less exasperating than a city-gate road block. But while even patrols can be abused by those truly determined, they are much less likely to lead to the type of frustration that is capable of boiling over, especially when security personnel adopt civility in their approach to their assignment.
And if the government is serious, there are other additional measures it can adopt to ease the difficulties encountered at checkpoints in dealing with the current situation in the country. The timely gathering of intelligence, the correct analysis of the data, the proper utilization of the result and prompt preventive action will prove of more lasting value than all the checkpoints in the world. But if checkpoints must remain, the police and soldiers manning them should be informed that there is something called human rights that goes along with the rule of law.
Since at the moment there exists technology to detect bombs from a distance without invasion of privacy, government should consider using the vast amounts of money that are being taken out of its coffers daily to procure that appropriate dose of technology to use in unobtrusive detection.
Meanwhile, the nation is burning, with insurmountable problems slowly gnawing at the sinews of its soul, and suddenly every Nigerian is a Nero, and, for him, the country is veritable Rome. It is as if we are all gathered at the abattoir of national suicide-unable, unwilling, and afraid to rise to the occasion appropriate for national salvation. Our problems, be they religious or communal crises, terrorism, armed robberies and other forms of banditry will continue because we are not applying the right solutions. The only viable, efficacious solution to our problem is not the erection of a checkpoint; it is the honesty and competence of leadership by example.
Good governance now is insurance by the nation, against the fire of an explosive insurgency later, for which accountability is the best policy. No checkpoint is strong enough to block the determined fury of a people short-changed. In the final analysis, the integrity of the country’s leadership-in Abuja and at all levels-is the only effective checkpoint against the war that is being waged and the strongest deterrent against the impunity of dastardly crime.
(Editor’s note: Malam Adamu has asked to be away for a few weeks; he will be back soon.)