The challenge before IGP Mohammed Adamu

The Acting Inspector General of Police IGP Mohammed Adamu has an uphill task. How can he give the Nigeria Police a good public image? And that is even the minor challenge! Every new Inspector General of Police assumes office with this task as primary challenge from the first day. Sadly for every IGP, the honeymoon […]

The Acting Inspector General of Police IGP Mohammed Adamu has an uphill task. How can he give the Nigeria Police a good public image? And that is even the minor challenge! Every new Inspector General of Police assumes office with this task as primary challenge from the first day. Sadly for every IGP, the honeymoon is often short lived as some bizarre anti-people criminal act by the men in police uniforms quickly takes notorious precedence over all the good intentions and acts of reform of the incoming IGP until his tenure ends ignominiously. You can count up to five if not more IGPs backwards and find that their trajectory is the same. They assume Office and declare reforms in departure from past criticised experience, launch an anti-crime slogans, and shortly after, matters just get worse than were found.

The Nigeria Police is a highly trained professional arm of the national security architecture, and deserves more credit and commendation than it is getting. Hundreds of times the Police would solve murders, apprehend heinous criminals oftentimes, the officers perishing in the process. Then suddenly, one untoward occurrence from an error of judgement and corresponding action of a few bad eggs in the force, and all the good deeds of the police get flushed down the drain by a deluge of bad public opinion.

For IGP Adamu, It became one civilian death too many during the week. A 20-year-old lady and a young man were shot in Ajegunle area of Lagos. Police identified the girl who reportedly died, as 20-year-old Ada Ifeanyi. Her companion, one identified as 32-year-old Emmanuel Akomafuwa is said to be critically injured and in hospital in Lagos.

Earlier in April, a man, Kolade Johnson was reportedly shot by police officers with Nigeria’s anti-cultism police unit during a raid in Lagos on a Sunday, according to a statement from the Nigerian Police Force. According to the reports, members of the anti-cultism units were searching for a suspect and at one point fired into the air. According to Johnson’s family, the 36-year-old father and a friend were leaving a soccer viewing centre in the area, where they had gone to watch a football league match, when a stray bullet hit and killed him.

Johnson’s killing provoked angry outrage among Nigerians, forcing the Police to immediately act.

Now in effort to reduce casualty following misuse of weapons by policemen, IGP Adamu on a condolence visit to the bereaved families – a move that should give public confidence and improve the image of the police, has ordered that officers and men across the country undergo weapon handling training and retraining.

How long will it take before IGP Adamu runs irretrievably out of favour of the public remains to be seen. But we must look at the whole big picture. For how long shall we derail our police force to the point where it is becoming the norm to have the military involved in matters of internal security that should be the sole responsibility of the police? Should we not address the shortcomings that disable the force from coping with the national security demands? It seems that we are deliberately accepting the degradation of the military by accepting the aberration that internal security is now the national security – for we should be ashamed that we have “developed” criminal activity to the standard that it is now the national security challenge requiring the use of the Army, the Air Force and even the Navy. Is it not looking like a deliberate ploy that enhances the relevance of an out of political life Military?

With a population of 180 million, police staff strength of about 371,800 is considered grossly inadequate and does not provide for efficiency in a terrain as difficult as Nigeria is.The United Nations recommended ratio is for 222 police officers per 100,000 persons which would indicate that Nigeria is on track. While the terrain is unique, a significant portion of the police is deployed to guarding installations, institutions and very important personalities, which leaves only a small portion dedicated to police work. All past Police chiefs have decried this anomaly. Not one of them has addressed the matter to a logical conclusion.

World over, police work is technology and intelligence driven. Not so in Nigeria where our police is forced to use crude methods in pursuit of very sophisticated and technology propelled criminals. Without the aid of installed closed circuit cameras, and communication and cyber intelligence gadgetry, crime detection is as difficult as can be imagined. This challenge in addition to professional training has to be addressed.

Take the problematic counter violent robbery contraption called SARS.  Denial seems to be the main problem. Denial that a special unit of the police, trained and equipped to deal with armed robbery of the Nigerian type is an absolute necessity. The other denial is the authorities’ refusal to accept evidential criticism of the operations of SARS. Sadly hard as you try, you will not find on the Nigeria Police Force website the simple story of the creation of the Special Anti Robbery Squad; no statement of its vision or mission. All there is to find is a scanty allusion to the fact that SARS, is one of the 14 units under the Nigeria Police Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Department. The unit was created to arrest, investigate and prosecute people involved in violent crimes such as armed robberies, murders, kidnapping, hired assassination and other forms of extreme criminality. I am willing to believe that beyond this, the operatives of SARS do not know and cannot recite more. Much less so, the Nigerian public that bears the brunt of the police cannon, despite the good intentions behind the creation of the unit.

The fear of an encounter with SARS is the beginning and the end of all wisdom. Parents admonish their children to “be cool” with the men of the squad more than they caution vigilance of lurking armed robbers.

IGP Adamu has challenges that are beyond the haphazard operation of a contraption such as the SARS.