State Police: We are almost there

When I was called to make my presentation, I enumerated the merits of state police and even dealt with the arguments I thought might be raised by opponents of the idea. When I finished, Gana called on the gentleman who had been hitting the table to take the floor and respond to my presentation. He simply said “I yield.” He didn’t go further than that. An unconditional surrender. Gana then called on a former military governor from the Southwest who was also an opponent of the idea. He said that he was concerned that some state governors might use state police if established against their political opponents. Since I had dealt with that during my presentation, he said he had nothing more to say.

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The idea was adopted as one of the recommendations of our committee. At the plenary the idea was also adopted. However, when the committee on security which was headed by a former Inspector General of Police, Gambo Jimeta made its presentation, it did not recommend state police. It called on the conference to adopt its own recommendations because that committee was the main committee on security. The conference chairman said that any recommendation adopted at plenary was the conference’s decision irrespective of which committee recommended it. So I won.

But no government has paid any attention to the idea until terrorists and bandits started kidnapping and killing our people at jet-speed rate. Now President Bola Tinubu has realized that state police is an idea whose time had come a long time ago. He has now asked the National Assembly to amend the 1999 Constitution to accommodate state police. The new Inspector General of Police, Tunji Disu has said that state police is an idea whose time has come. He says that “decentralization will allow state and local authorities to respond more effectively to internal security challenges while the federal government focuses on broader national priorities.”

His predecessor, Kayode Egbetokun has been saying that Nigeria is not ripe for state police because governors could use them for political or personal gains. If that was his view, did he suggest how such abuses could be curbed? He did not because the real reason for his opposition to state police is stomach infrastructure.

There is no Inspector General of Police in Nigeria that has ever supported state police. They do not want their powers bifurcated. They do not want the goodies given to them by all the state governors to cease. It is a very selfish position because they want to be the alpha and omega. That is why almost all of the IGP’s have had problems with the Police Service Commission (PSC). They do not want to share power. That is why they are facing each other in court. They want to be on their own, be their own masters. They do not want the supervisory authority of the PSC.

There is nowhere in the world where the police is not supervised by a higher authority, especially a civilian authority in a democracy. Disu must make a difference by working with the PSC to improve the lot, the welfare, the training, the discipline and the infrastructure of the Nigeria Police Force.

Good a thing we now have an IGP who acknowledges that a single, centrally controlled police force cannot do the job of securing the country. My argument has always been, if a single, centrally controlled police force can do the job, why hasn’t it? The truth is that this country is too large, too diversified, culturally and linguistically for a single centrally controlled police force to cope with its huge insecurity challenges.

We have about 400, 000 policemen and women to cover and provide security for about 220 million people. That is a herculean task, an impossible task even if their equipment are the best in the world. And they are not. And our police have a long history of corruption. When the Police Service Commission made its first promotion of policemen during the Obasanjo era, the policemen assigned to assist the PSC in its administration were complaining “How can these people make all these promotions without Ghana must Go?” So it was clear to us (I was a member of the Police Service Commission board) that promotions were done largely under corrupt circumstances. But when we got there, we worked out a model that worked without corruption. But that did not mean that corruption had been eliminated within the Police Force. It is still there particularly among those mounting road blocks on the road. You still hear such expressions as “your boys are on the road, territory is safe, we want to drink water, the weather is hot.” These are unveiled requests for bribe. And they also brutalise Nigerians, shoot at them without justification and violate their fundamental human rights. And then their Public Relations Officers place somewhere in their offices a placard that says “the police is your friend.” Friend indeed!

It is true that there may be some abuses with the establishment of state police. No human institution is perfect since no human being is perfect. But imperfections can be curbed by bringing on board some checks and balances, by separating federal crimes from others. That is a responsibility for the legal minds in the system to work on. Of course, there will have to be a State Police Service Commission that will be responsible for appointments, promotions and discipline of all the policemen and women under their watch. Each state will also have to establish a State Police Fund so as to be able to raise substantial sums of money to adequately fund the activities of its policemen especially in the area of communication and intelligence infrastructure. The Nigeria Police today is still deficient in such areas. That is why its achievement level is low. It is not their fault but the fault of those who think that a single police system can solve our insecurity problems. No matter how well equipped the Nigeria Police is, it will still fall short of our expectations because it does not have the numbers; it does not have access to rural communities which are the soft targets today; it does not have the intelligence and it does not have an understanding of the lay of the land, the demographics, the culture and other things in between.

For the country to succeed in using state police to curb insecurity, we all must make our contributions to ensure that there are no abuses. In particular, the following institutions must play an active part in monitoring their performance and holding them accountable: judiciary, the media, civil society groups, labour and students groups.