Will state police be an antidote to insecurity?

Maybe so. Now that the executive and the legislature seem to be on the same page on the issue, it looks like there will be rapid progress. President Bola Ahmed Tinubu spent a good deal of last week winning the hearts of National Assembly members on the need for them to amend the constitution to […]

Maybe so. Now that the executive and the legislature seem to be on the same page on the issue, it looks like there will be rapid progress. President Bola Ahmed Tinubu spent a good deal of last week winning the hearts of National Assembly members on the need for them to amend the constitution to provide for state police as a panacea for the pervasive insecurity that grounds governance in many parts of the country. He made the plea the previous week at an interfaith breaking of the fast with the senators on Wednesday and members of the House of Representatives on Friday.

A few days later, on Wednesday last week, when the President swore in the new Inspector General of Police (IGP), Olatunji Disu, it became apparent that the new IGP had taken a cue from his principal. As soon as he reported to the office the next day, the first action he took was to inaugurate a seven-member steering committee to establish state police. This action is contrary to his predecessor’s designs to scuttle the idea of state police from going any further. IGP Kayode Egbetokun was openly opposed to the idea of state police, probably echoing the views of the top echelon of the police force.

He was reported to have presented a memo opposing state policing at a National Assembly public hearing, a move seen as imprudent, as it was a direct challenge to the president’s policy wish. It is widely believed that this was one of the reasons President Tinubu had to allow IGP Egbetokun to be put out to pasture. The task before the 7-member committee is not an enviable one, for we have been on that self-same route before. Time and again, bills have surfaced in the National Assembly on the same subject, never to succeed. Sometime in 2018, during the 8th Assembly, the furore was so heightened that we all thought it was finally dawn for the state police to materialise.

The national assembly and the media space were agog with intense discussions about the need to implement the idea of state police. I was keenly following the discussions, particularly in the senate, where the supremely confident Senator Ike Ekweremadu was leading the charge. There were talk shows on TV stations and in the FM radio landscape, all in a bid to raise the tempo of acceptance of the state police. 2018 was a bad year for security in the country. Boko Haram, which was deemed to have been defeated two years earlier, was making a dramatic comeback with a serious attack on soldiers at Jakana, a mere 40 kilometres from Maiduguri.

The bandits harassing motorists on the Abuja-Kaduna highway had become emboldened, making it difficult to traverse the road even during the day. There was an increase in brigandage in Zamfara, Sokoto and parts of Kaduna States. The communal clashes in the Plateau were unceasing. All these grave incidents at that time only tended to fuel the resolve of the proponents of the idea of state police. They continue to wail aloud that all these point to the fact that the Nigerian Police Force, as constituted, cannot guarantee the safety of the lives and properties of citizens.

They want a force that is primarily composed of indigenes of the state, who would know the nooks and crannies of their area of operation, and is also subject to state assembly laws. Unfortunately, all these efforts came to nought. The state police bill never metamorphosed into a worthy document. The reasons are not far to find. The misgivings of the idea’s opponents had weighed more heavily in the balance. They cried that the police force was severely understaffed, and even what was left of it was decimated into several other institutions, such as the EFCC, ICPC, FRSC, and a myriad of state government militias. On top of that, it is common knowledge that the police force has, over the years, been stymied by perennial underfunding and a lack of current equipment to handle the new wave of terrorism.

Giving state governments the power to maintain their own police forces would only exacerbate the problem, as many of them would not have the wherewithal to do so. In addition, the opponents of the state police opine that state governors would misuse it. They cite the State Independent Electoral Commissions (SIEC), whose conduct of local government elections has always been a source of concern. All elections they conducted were, curiously, always won by the ruling party in the states. They also pointedly ask: How do we stop the governor from unleashing the state police on his opponents, particularly at election times, as was done in some regions during the 1st Republic?

Many more still ask: How do we stop a governor from stacking the state police with only members of his ethnic group, his religious or sectarian persuasion, or his political henchmen? This question is pertinent today, as both President Tinubu and his predecessor have disregarded the heterogeneous nature of our federation in staffing critical institutions, particularly the top echelons of the security services. The president would be in no position to counsel any errant governor in this regard.

The 7-man committee would have to give these misgivings serious consideration to submit a balanced report to the IGP.