There have been several calls made over the years for the provision of State Police in the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The most recent of these calls was made by a member of the Lagos State House of Assembly and reported in some national newspapers, and this has led to me writing this article.
The current operational framework puts the Police firmly within the control of the Federal Government via the Inspector General of Police who reports to the President of the country. The calls for state police have been given credence by the perceived ineffectiveness and incompetence of the police. This view is not far from the truth. The failures of the police force are well documented. Assassinations upon assassination have gone unsolved, crime and general lawlessness is on the rise, the police are ill equipped and unnecessary roadblocks litter our highways and so on and so forth. However, is spite of all of this, can state controlled police really be a viable alternative?
Based on the facts on the ground and with the use of logic, a State controlled police makes sense. A few proactive and forward-looking states are having their plans and vision truncated by the ineffectiveness and incompetence of the Nigerian Police. The plethora of State agencies and task forces devoted to traffic management, sanitation control, action against street trading and the like all owe their relevance to the failure of the police. No state has as yet been able to provide an agency to take crime head on because of course, such a body would be required to possess weaponry in order to defend itself from criminals, which the constitution does not allow. A police force under the control of the state government, properly managed, equipped and motivated would potentially be able to bring about more rapid development to the state in question. The Governor is meant to be the Chief Security Officer of every state. However, in a situation where he does not control the apparatus, how on earth can he really be held accountable for the actions and inactions of the police within the confines of his state? Take Lagos state for example. Governor Fasola has given an immense amount of the support to the Police Command in Lagos, by way of purchase of vehicles, communication gadgets, bulletproof vests and more. This has had some effect in reducing crime, as reports reaching me from friends and family who currently reside there say crime has actually reduced. The situation could however be better. A major obstacle to effective policing in Lagos and everywhere else has not necessarily been vehicles or bulletproof vests, but logistics. 100 new vehicles are all well and good, but how do you deploy them effectively? Various police numbers to call when in distress are all well and good, but do the police have a means of responding? Do they have service level agreements (SLA’s) in place to guarantee that they are at every residence within 10minutes of receiving a call? Have they practiced how to beat Lagos traffic and deploy within the agreed time frame? Are they effectively trained to deliver quality service to the people? In the absence of control, there is little the Governor can do to improve on the lack of logistical capacity of the police. The police are almost a government unto themselves. Perhaps if Fasola had his own police force, he would be able to structure it in such a way that would give a positive answer to all of these questions, which would set Lagos aside as a safe place to do invest and do business, night and day, and would undoubtedly serve to rapidly expand the economy of his state.
This is however just one side of the coin. Let me now flip over to the other side. Let me now postulate what might happen in some of the not so proactive and forward looking states (for the sake of avoiding any backlash, I will not mention any state here). A state police under the control of one of such backward looking states could proffer doom for the state and by extension the country. The 2011 election is not too far away. With the current stage of our political development, consider what might happen if some of our current Governors had the apparatus of state police firmly under their control? I put it to you that all hell would break loose. Such a police force would undoubtedly become agents of intimidation, harassment and assassinations. Without state police, unseating an incumbent Governor is almost impossible. They usually tend to unleash all manner of touts on the opposition. Imagine what would happen if they controlled a police force. Imagine the late Lamidi Adedibu having a police force under his control? I shudder at the thought!!!
No doubt, some arguments can be made for the establishment of a state police. However, while there may be some need for it, I believe we should consider it an impossibility at this stage of our political and socio-economic development.
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