By Soseipiriye Long Williams Esq

On Friday, 15th February,2024, Nigerians were inundated with the news that the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Bola Ahmed Tinubu GCFR and the 36 State Governors are in bed for the creation of State Police in the country pending the necessary amendments on the constitution by the National Assembly.

The Nigerian Police Force as we know it today was established in 1820 by the then British colonial government aimed primarily to protect its political and economic interest. In course of time and upon gaining independence, the Police came under the command and control of the federal government when laws such as the Police Act Cap 355 LFN was passed to direct the activities of the Police and the Police Service Commission established to oversee the recruitment, control and discipline of Police personnel.

As the years roll by, the Nigerian Police has continued to fail and break the hearts of Nigerians in the performance of their duties as set out in Section 4 of the Police Act, 2020, Laws of the Federation. The Police instead of protecting lives and properties of Nigerians by preventing the commission of crimes and bringing culprits to book, has turned out to be one of our worst nightmare.

With the spike in the rate of insecurity in Nigeria and its attendant collateral consequences on food security and the economy including the failure of the Nigerian state to nip these security challenges in the bud, many have argued that this failure is as a result of the centralisation of the structure, command and control of the Police Force.

The proponents of this view have strenuously argued that decentralisation of the Police will make for a more effective policing as members of the police, being locals and therefore knowledgeable about the community, would be more effective in fighting crime, terrorism, civil unrest and insurgency. I find this argument laughable, if this is the core reason for the intended decentralisation of the Police, then we are like comedians in a circus show. The pertinent question to ask to puncture this naive argument is this, are there no indigenous Police Officers presently serving in thier various states of origin, what has been the positives of their service in these states, localities and environments where they come from. Has there been any positive outcomes from which we can measure the basis for this reasoning. I am yet to find one. Besides, flowing from the arguments of the proponents of State Police, is there any thing wrong in deploying Police personnel from a particular locality to that locality when there is need to get personnel who are familiar with that locality when a crime is committed to investigate and fish out the criminals operating in that locality. Is the Police barred from doing that. Has it been done. If there is nothing wrong in doing that then what is the essence of creating State Police just because you need locals who know the terrain to constitute the Police Force?

Others have argued that the Police is constituted by less than 400,000 strong force for a country or over 200 million people. And that out of that number, a large chunk of them are deployed to protect VIPs. I ask, is solving this challenge rocket science? The answer to that is obvious, employ, train and equip more personnel to meet up with the United Nations ratio. These twin reasons for the amendment of the constitution for the creation of State Police are to me dead on arrival. I wait for the proponents of State Police to proffer more plausible and convincing reasons.

It is pertinent to point out that there are too many dangers inherent in the creation of State Police in Nigeria and the dangers are legion.
Firstly, Our politicians are too primitive, not civilised enough and not tolerant of opposing views. Majority of them cannot preside over a competent and an impartial police force. Osita Okechukwu, the immediate past Director General of Voice of Nigeria stated this “State Police in my considered view is politics of grievance, which outcome may be worse than the solution envisaged given the anti-democratic antecedents of the custodians of the sub-national units and poor financial status of some states”

Allowing Politicians the command and control of the Police in their various states will lead to unprecedented abuse of power, intimidation of perceived opponents and critics, it will be an unprecedented and monumental disaster. We are living witnesses to the events of the 2023 elections in some states and the noxious role some Police personnel played, There are videos of Police Officers intimidating, grabbing, snatching and running away with Ballot boxes and electoral materials for the benefit of a particular party, have we imagined the outcome of an election where the State Police is under the command and control of the governor, hell will be let loose. We as a people are not just mentally and socially mature for that kind of Policing.

In a country where the respect for the rule of law is in the negative, how do we manage a situation where the Police starts and ends with the Governor. What will happen to judgement of courts that are against the state Government or any of its personnel? How will they be enforced? Even now that the Police is commanded centrally, the challenges of enforcing judgements against the state and its institutions are limitless much more when the Police is under the command and control of the Governors.

Furthermore, we are all aware of the nature of agitations going on in most parts of the country, have we considered the effect State Police will have on those agitations. Some State Police Commands will be so armed by thier various states governments that challenging the Federal Police or the Nigerian army in a duel will be like a walk in the park for them. We are all living witnesses to reports of clashes between the Police and the Army personnel in the country, have we wondered how this clashes will turn out when we have a functional and well armed State Police.
Late Abubakar Tsav a former Commissioner of Police has this to say about State Police “establishment of state police will signal the beginning of the disintegration of the country, as governors would use the institution against their perceived political opponents. Our politicians are not civilised enough and tolerant of opposing views and cannot preside over a competent and impartial police force”

What about enforcement of state laws , orders and directives. Citizens will be subjected to all manner of intimidations, arrest and molestations in the hands of various states commands as state laws being not uniform in the country will lead to unprecedented conflicts in enforcements thereby affecting the rights and freedom of citizens who move from one state to the other for various reasons.

Also we have issues of disagreement on state boundaries between some states, there will be war between states over this disputes as some state will unleash its Police Command against the other state to enforce its ownership of disputed areas and this will lead to disaster in the country.

It must be emphasized that the bane of the Police is not the creation of State Police, that is a far cry.

The bane of the Police are legion and multifaceted and they include but not limited to the following:
a. The Police is underfunded and the Personnel are poorly paid. The take home pay of the average Police Officer per month is not something to talk about. It is shameful. The Police should be properly funded and the personnel adequately paid.

b. Corruption. The corruption within the Police force stinks to the nadir. Most of the budget of the Police ends at the central command and does not trickle to the various state commands and this hampers effective policing because the little that comes down to the commands also becomes victims of corruption. A proper mechanism must be put in place to check excessive corruption in the force.

c. Lack of adequate manpower. As stated earlier, the number of Police Personnel in the country does not meet the United Nations minimum standard. Even the few we have are deployed to protect few persons to the detriment of the majority that are supposed to benefit from effective and adequate policing.

d. Poor recruitment process. The process of recruitment of manpower into the Police force is abysmally poor. There is no data base used in the recruitment of persons into the force. Most persons with criminal records have found their way into the force and that’s why we have so many rogue Police personnel exhibiting bad behaviour all over the country with its attendant consequences .

e. Poor living conditions and low self esteem. If one goes around the various Police formations in the country, one will be bewildered by the state of the housing for Police personnel. They are nondescript, uninhabitable and poorly maintained and all this are fall outs of the issues of corruption. The Police does not take care of its own and this leads to low self esteem amongst the personnel.

f. Lack of trust. There is no trust existing between the people, the community and the Police. This lack of trust has hindered effective policing in Nigeria with its grave consequences. The police need intelligence from the communities and when there is no flow of information on crimes, effective policing becomes a challenge.

g . Inadequate and poor deployment of Information technology. The police need to upgrade it’s use of ICT and employ capable manpower to deploy same. This continued deployment of analog policing will take us no where. The world has gone beyond that stage yet our police have refused to upgrade.

h. Lack of interest in joining the Police Force. The Police presently does not attract the best of Nigerians into the force. This is caused by the challenges listed above. Nigerians are all aware of the state of the Police and its personnel, that’s why the best brains are not attracted to join the force. A force in which Nigerians see how they live,how they are paid, how they are despised, how they are accommodated in the very worst sorroundings, how families of Police personnel who lose their lives in the line of duty are maltreated and abandoned cannot attract its best minds.

The Police Service Commission needs to wake up and do more. Their failure to live up to their responsibilities is what is heightening the call for state police. The problem of the Police today is a Nigerian problem and not a state problem. Until we live up to our responsibilities and change our mindset, even state police will turn out worse.

I find it rather amazing that professional bodies and civil society organisations are dead quiet on this nerve issue of state police. The silence is troubling and sickening. A core fundamental in our living as a people is about to be altered for the very wrong reasons with anticipated worst outcomes, those who are supposed to speak up for the people of Nigeria are quiet.

Inasmuch as some proponents of state Police may have the best of intentions, we must be guided, for as the Israeli Prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu said ” best intentions does not prevent worst outcomes”

I submit finally that the creation of State Police in Nigeria will definitely lead to worst outcomes.