By Femi Oyelola
There is no doubt that Nigeria as a country is having its fair share of security challenges. The precarious security situation in the country has enormously manifested in terrorism, kidnapping, armed robbery, religious violence, and banditry among others.
The country has also been ranked low by the Global Peace Index (GPI), signifying a worsening state of insecurity in the country.
Hence, challenges of insecurity have assumed formidable dimensions and, the government of the day has not relented in its responsibility of ensuring that the entire social space is safe and secure for economic activities as well as social interactions among the people.
The prevailing poor security situation in the country spanning over a decade, has no doubt, drawn the attention of the government of President Bola Tinubu and to rethink age long agitation for the approval of state police as an option for combating insecurity in Nigeria.
The quest for state police has been a long-standing issue, and previous attempts to introduce it during the Seventh National Assembly were unsuccessful.
Coincidently, five days after the federal government and governors of the 36 states agreed to establish state police as a response to the growing insecurity across the nation, the Constitution Amendment Bill proposing the introduction of state police passed second reading in the House of Representatives.
Kaduna State Governor Senator Uba Sani an advocate for state police welcoming the development opined that the menace of insecurity plaguing a large portion of the country especially the North can only be put to an end by implementing state policing.
Give. Sani stressed that in the last six months since coming into office he has been insisting that the Country can only address the issue of insecurity if we establish state policing,
“I am happy that a few weeks ago some governors joined me in agitating for state police and it was a lone voice
Some governors have also done a lot in the last few months by establishing or empowering the vigilance services,” he said.
Reacting to this development, the Executive Director of the Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC), Auwal Ibrahim Musa (Rafsanjani) lauded the federal and state governments for making cautious efforts to address the issue of insecurity in the country.
He added that looking at ongoing campaigns and discussions on whether or not the present central structure of the Nigeria Police Force should be allowed to continue to protect the lives and property of Nigerians, tackle other forms of insecurity in the country, or whether state police establishment is the way out of Nigeria security challenges, “Nigeria has not attained the level of advancement or sophistication in our diversity like some of the countries of the world that have established State Police.
“Even though it is evident in Nigeria that there is a condition of general insecurity such as police brutality and arbitrary executions, corruption in the police force leading to bad policing in Nigeria, and a culture of lack of transparency and accountability amongst relevant government authorities that are responsible to regulate and keep the police in check to operate in standard professionalism.
“The aforementioned suggests that the federal police force as it exists now does not meet the high expectations of stakeholders on a national and international level (especially with the recent failures of the federal police force to protect lives). Hence the continuing calls for decentralization in the form of state police.
“What is also evident is that Nigerians tribalize and regionalize everything in the country. Therefore, I would rather say it is not yet time for us to establish state police.
“In this context, not only that the establishment of state police has implications on National security but also CISLAC thinks that the finest theory of policing that any country can adopt should have a solid psychological basis since the police’s tactics are heavily influenced by the psychological and social environment that they are tasked to maintain law and order.
“Additionally, our tribal population, cultural and religious identities have been more prevalent recently and have further divided our nation.
“Nigeria is still in the process of development, so our people and identities are not equally diverse as they should be to promote our country’s interests. Just to mention that the social, political, and economic factors that have played a part in the decline of the Nigeria Police Force’s existing central structure, pose serious threats to the successful operation of state police.” He said
Auwal Ibrahim Musa (Rafsanjani) premised that the establishment of state police is not without shortcomings, judging from the ugly experience of its experimentation in the first republic.
“Hence, there is a need to strike a balance between federal policing and the proposed state policing. Any policing approach to be adopted should be able to tackle insecurity and stem the tide of crimes across the federation.
“ Also, such a policing approach should be sensitive and manage the prevalent differences in tribe and religion among Nigerians. In this connection, is the unequivocal and urgent need for concerted psychological input into the police, and policing in Nigeria,” he concluded.
However, a security expert, Dr.Yahuza Getso Ahmed said he opposed any idea of creating State Police because it would be the biggest mistake in Nigeria, which would not take the country to the promised land in terms of managing security.
According to him, the Governors have been using the Federal Police as a tool for dealing with the opposition – disgracing, embarrassing, arresting, and molesting them.
He added that there’s no convincing position that can be put forward to him assuring that the country will get to the promised land with State police, saying he has reservations about how the present crop of governors and politicians will manage state police wisely for effective performance.
Dr Yahuza Getso Ahmed stressed that the present agitation for establishing state police by the Governor harps on constraints of funding, management, behaviour, lack of professional ability, capability and challenges of the inability of the police to handle the security situation in the country.
He is of the view that the best way is to go back to the drawing board and find ways of creating a possible mitigating factor on how to tackle corruption and to deal with anybody who may be found wanting either directly or indirectly without fear or favour and to do the needful so that can serve as a deterrent to others;
“Conduct massive recruitments into the Force with a minimum of 100 persons per polling unit. If there are ten polling units in a political ward, it is going to give 1,000 policemen – newly branded recruits between the age of 17 – 25 years old.
“If there are ten wards in a local government area, that will amount to 100,000 policemen. That will help to build their capacity;
“Provide adequate arms and armaments; modernize the process and reorient the psychology of a common policeman in Nigeria;
“Improve surveillance, monitoring and tracking of the behavioural perspective especially to do with the issue of security breach and the rest not until when the situation is out of hand and then we start to beat around the bush;
“We need to have a standard policing system where we have enough and adequate strategy for monitoring, evaluation, assessment, revisiting, reviewing and tracking to ensure that all policemen in the country respect the do and don’t of the force based on the police apps;
“ The Country needs to have a systematic approach which would be used to determine the process of policing Nigeria, using the community initiative, community-driven, community implemented, then community sustain.
“ To have interwoven behaviour in terms of managing security between security agencies i.e police authority and the community. Because there is a huge gap between the community and the police authority and only the police. There is a huge gap between security and the community.
“ Unless we are ready, willing, interested, wishing to adhere to all the above it is then we test the hypothesis and test the result.
“ But I quite disagree with anybody who is agitating for state police because it is a profession whom I believe that its implication – both financial, material, socio-economic and human implications are huge and that is not going to be good for the nation and Nigerians will never be happy with that. That’s the reality,” hw said.
Speaking in similar vein, Hon. Abdulhamid Abdullahi Ikara opined that the poor security situation has drawn the attention of the present Government of His Excellency, Bola Ahmed Tinubu GCFR President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to re-design a strategy to come up an ideas of creation of states police aim to serve as the second option to combating terrorisms in Nigeria.
He stressed that it is important to understand that insecurity undermines Northern Nigeria’s peace and socioeconomic development and almost shuts down agricultural farming activities, trade and investment, tourism activities and human development, particularly in the affected states of Borno, keep, Niger, Sokoto, Kaduna, Kogi, Yobe and many others.
“ What creation of state police should first put into consideration the danger of the political leader’s overwhelming interest in the recruitment exercise. Many people fear political thugs’ engagement in the recruitment exercise and possible free arms in society which is a threat to society.
“The citizens Should advise the Government to increase the recruitment numbers of the Nigerian police force from approved 10,000 to 500,000 annually while their salaries, allowances and retirement benefits should also be increased as motivational factors that help strengthen their civic responsibility.
One can say what would happen if state police fail to be properly taken care of by the state’s Governors in respect of the above-stated subject matter refer?
But in a Sharp reaction, the chairman of the Amotekun command in Southwest Adetunji Adeleye, who is an advocate of State Police said he had always advocated grassroots state policing as it appears right now to be the only solution to these perennial and incessant security breaches across the country
He cites what he describes as the success of the Amotekun initiative in Ondo State.
“If you take Ondo State as a case study, we have been able to nip criminal activity in the bud, reflected in the massive drop in the crime rate. This has been made possible by our people,” says Adeleye.
Police in Nigeria are under the federal government with no state allowed to establish its police force.
“Once we see an outsider or somebody indulging in suspicious activity, we act on that immediately. If you run, we know the terrain more than you.”
There have been apprehensions about the state-level apparatus overriding the federal security structure and creating more divisions in the country. But Adeleye says there is no cause for such apprehensions.
‘’As long as we keep to the law and the code of operations and practice, I don’t see why a police force controlled by the state won’t thrive.”
Governors of states in the Southeast and the Northwest of the country have also established local security outfits to confront their challenges.
It is worth mentioning that currently, security outfits established by state governments have limited powers and weapon-carrying authority compared with the police and their members are mainly volunteers from communities.
For any changes to be carried out in the police structure, Nigeria’s Constitution has to be amended.
However, as in many countries, bringing constitutional amendment is cumbersome in Nigeria. Two-thirds of 36 State assemblies and the federal legislature would have to accept such an amendment and there must be public hearings.
Those opposed to sub-national policing argue that it could prove counterproductive.
However regional groups like Afenifere, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Middle Belt Forum, and the Northern Elders’ Forum have also advocated for state police to solve the growing security challenges.
Whatever the pros and cons of the establishment of state police, Nigerians bearing the brunt of insecurity in the country would be hoping that the tide turns soon.
