Imagine an emperor strutting over a crumbling empire?
That perfectly projects the latest legalism, from the Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Kayode Egbetokun, in his latest opposition to state police.
If indeed the IGP is a crack mathematician — he earned his first degree in Mathematics from the University of Lagos — then he would realize the math just doesn’t add up!
State police is an idea whose time has come. It would be enlightened self-interest for the who-is-who in the national security apparatus to support it.
Every passing day returns the same grim verdict: a centralized police, that the Nigeria Police now constitutes, can’t deal with the current security crisis.
It’s time to face the harsh reality and stop playing the ostrich, because of extant power and positions. There’s neither power nor glory in vanishing quicksand!
Yet, the IGP’s legal take, to the House of Representatives constitutional review dialogue, themed “Nigeria’s Peace and Security: the Constitutional Imperative”, is hardly haram. Before we take any wise step, we must be steeped in the constitutional birthing of the Nigeria Police.
The IGP, insisting on Section 214(1) of the 1999 Constitution, which lawfully allows only one centralized Police, told us what we already know. But then, isn’t replacing that unitary police, in a supposed federal state, the reason for having this dialogue?
Worse: doesn’t that law — cast in stone ? — grimly remind us how harsh reality has beaten it black and blue?
The result? Lost lives and hewn limbs, seasonal bloodbath in the macabre massacre of the helpless and peaceful, with the central authorities pledging to do better, each time killers strike. Yet, are condemned to re-making same grim promises, when terror strikes next time?
Wasn’t the IGP struck by the irony of these ardent but never fulfilled promises?
They are ardent but unfulfilled — or even unfulfillable — not because the Nigeria Police is incompetent. Even with its bad eggs, our cops rank among the finest anywhere. They are near-unfulfillable because the police, no matter how earnest or dutiful, are already trumped by an impossible structure!
There simply is an imperative for more boots on the ground, especially in Nigeria’s wide, wild and un-policed spaces. The Federal Government simply can’t go it alone.
It needs complementary investment from state governments that can, for now, afford it. Those who can’t, right now, can follow later. Easy breezy? Not quite!
Which then leads straight to the Nigerian power elite’s centralist mindset, when they hit the federal capital of Abuja — an irony in itself? That’s masked by paternalism that crows but seldom delivers! If it did, we would still not be in this insecurity mess.
Such strange paternalism was dutifully reflected in the IGP’s anti-state police position.
“Let me state unequivocally that the National Police Force acknowledges the rationale behind the demand for state police,” conceded the IGP, “including the desire for locally responsive policing, quicker reaction to community-level threats, and decentralized law enforcement presence.”
“However,” — it’s glorious paternalism, stupid! — “our assessment, based on current political, institutional and socio-economic realities, shows that Nigeria is not yet … politically prepared for the initialization of police powers to the state level.”
Why? “Key concerns include the possibility of political misuse of police powers at the state level, lack of funding capacity by most states to maintain and equip a state control force, the potential for fragmentation of national security, intelligence and command, the absence of regulatory architecture to ensure standard and operational cohesion”.
Let no one hurry to shoo the IGP out of the room. Indeed, his fears are backed by solid historical horrors, in the 1st Republic order (1960-1966), that caused so much disorder and sent the political military grate-crashing into power.
Indeed, it was a period best forgotten! Alkali police in the North and naked thugs, hiding under local police, visiting mayhem; and muscling elections in the name of the local rogue order. It’s rather forgettable, from the prism of police professionalism.
So, a furious military, with no command flexibility, would go the other extreme of re-shaping the Police in its centralized, bristling law-and-order image. No crime!
Still, has the Federal Government, with a police that takes orders from the President and commander-in-chief, via his operational viceroy, the IGP, fared better? Hardly!
The Shehu Shagari era (1979-1983) birthed the Mobile Police unit, notoriously re-named “Kill and Go”! President Olusegun Obasanjo, in his two (s)elections of 2003 and 2007 — his 2007 war cry was do-or-die — had the police proudly embedded in that electoral heist and rape.
To be fair, though: many governors, if they had the chance, would gladly have misused and abused the police, without blinking, for selfish ends.
So, if abuse is an equal-opportunity possibility, why would the federal czar posture it would abuse the police less than the many wannabe czars in the 36 states?
To that extent, much of the IGP’s anti-state police worries are just stacking cards and stoking fears. The lesson of history and strict laws and regulations should take care of those.
In any case, why should past fears cripple our thinking and shackle us to past horrors, when what to do is fresh and rigorous thinking, to make laws that should impose security in today’s dynamic setting?
That’s what the new thinking in state police is all about.
That dynamism, most times, is dangerous and life-threatening. But that precisely makes an unassailable case for state police, over the present clumsy omnibus.
The “North”, not long ago, was an impregnable fortress against state police. Now, harsh reality has set in — and the “North” has become cheer leaders in state police advocacy!
They see the yeoman efforts by the Army, the Police — conventional or secret — with the other security sister agencies. Yet, these agencies often fall short, when the chips are down!
Isn’t it better then, to merge state and federal investments in policing, federalize command-and-control to localize policing, effectively cover more of ungoverned spaces and maximize the grassroots to tap intelligence, and curtail crimes, even before they are committed?
Isn’t that better than the President, as he did in Benue, wondering aloud why the IGP and his (wo)men had not made any arrests, among the latest band of marauders?
Questioning the appropriateness of state police is rather belated. The challenge, right now, is to put in place stout laws to regulate operation and check abuse.
It’s not about a superman at the centre playing Hercules. That has failed us for much too long!
It’s rather a super-structure that federalizes the Police, but puts in place robust checks and balances, at every level of the command chain.
Credit:The Nation