The Fallacy Of State Or Community (Decentralised) Police -By Franklin B. Onoben (M.Ed)

For some time now or for a very long time, the whole country has been abuzz with the issue of state/community police and how it is the “silver bullet” that will solve all our insecurity challenges. But like many other things in Nigeria, not many people have given this the serious thought that it deserves. Those who want it don’t know the hidden issue that it may throw up while those who know have chosen the political angle.it is like whenever there is a serious security lapse like we are currently facing since after the general elections, the cry becomes unanimous for a decentralised police, but when there is relative peace, we forget about it. This “knee-jerk” (panicky) reaction to important issues of federalism has not helped our course yet we continue to adopt it in almost every matter of state.

The saying is that “in the time of peace, prepare for war” is apt here. The best time to get anything done is when one is not under pressure to get it done. Unlike many others who have commented on this and given reasons why they think Nigeria is not ready for it, this is why I don’t think we are ready for state/community police – because we are not approaching it with clear minds.

The critical questions that we should answer regarding our current policing structure are

·      What are the challenges of the current policing structure?

·      Are they challenges that we can fix thus fix the current structure?

·      How does a decentralised policing structure address all the identified challenges?

·      Are we ready for a decentralised policing structure now?

Until we are able to successfully and genuinely answer these questions, I’m afraid, we are not yet ready for state/community police.

In my opinion, the challenges bedevilling our current policing structure include the following:

1.    Insufficient Personnel

“The generally accepted police to civilian ratio is 1:450 or approximately 225 police officers for every 100,000 people.” This is the first thing that will pop up on your screen once you type in “citizen to police ratio” into a search engine. With this ratio, one does not need to be a genius to know that Nigeria is grossly under policed. What is even saddening is that the bulk of what we have today have been drafted to political and business VIPs as glorified bodyguards, house maids, gate men/women, errand boys/girls, bags & umbrellas carrier, etc. thus leaving the state unsecured. The few other police officers who are left to do real police are concentrated in the city centres thus leaving the hinterlands to the mercy of men and women of the underworld. Also, a major percentage of those who are supposedly doing police work are on our roads harassing innocent citizens – drivers, travellers, traders, young men, etc. This is quite sad.

2.    Little or No Motivation.

Added to the challenge discussed above is the fact that the few we have a not well motivated. Their take home pay doesn’t take them anywhere near home. To add to that, the issues of Life and Health Insurance are almost non-existence.so also is Housing, hazard and other allowances. Still related to the challenge of little or no motivation is the fact that these men and women of the force have to provide their own work gear – uniforms, shoes as well as basic work materials at the station like papers, photocopiers, power, etc. These things are a motivation killer no matter how we look at it and we cannot expect to get the best from any force left to work under these conditions.

3.    Corruption in the System.

The Nigerian Police Force is not immured to the virus that has eaten deep into the core of every public sector worker in the country. Whereas Poor Funding is a major challenge of the force, the problem is further complicated by the fact that the funds appropriated and/or released to fund the operations of the force does not get to where it ought to or do what it is allotted to. What then happens is that the officers and rank & file are left to source their own funds for their everyday operations. This is what has made them to turn against the very citizens they were employed to protect. They have become monsters to the very people they exist to secure with extortion, brutality and in some cases, outright robbery becoming their modus operandi. A recent survey put the Nigerian Police Force as the most corrupt public institution in the country. Bad as this is, it is a creation of the state by arming them and leaving them without funds.

4.    Shoddy Recruitment & Deployment Process

Many of the insufficient personnel of the force have lost their lives in the course of their duties. Many others have been sidelined due to injuries sustained while combating crime and criminality. It is sad to note however, that the process of replacing lost men have been much slower than should have been for any serious country. The recruitment process is also tainted with the fact that just any kind of person are allowed to come into the force. Many of the applicants, it is touted, are those who have been rejected by other employers or who have been frustrated by job seeking. Surely this is not a great profile for those who should man the security duty of any society. A lot of people have also queried the rationale behind posting men & women of the force to places where they are not familiar with the terrain, language, culture, etc. As I write this, a recruitment process that commenced since last year is still going on in mid-2019. This is serious cause for concern.

5.    Lack of Intelligent Tools.

In the 21st century, it is fool hardy to expect that security can be attained by simply deploying “boots on ground”. Doing so would be to put the men and women of the force in harm’s way. Security has become more covert that overt. The order in the world today is more of software than hardware. A lot more could be achieved if the men and women of the police force would have adequate state of the art gadgets to aid their work and intelligence gathering. Tools such like body kits, body cameras, stun-guns, Tasers, upgraded weapons, communication gadgets, etc. The personnel of the police force could do with automatic guns that could switch from lethal to non-life threatening to combat different categories of criminals. The present cock and shoot rifle that they carry is outdated and slow. Other intelligence tools that the police force could rely upon to make their work easier is Closed Circuit Television (CCTV). Without these tools, policing becomes very crude, manual and difficult.

6.    Absence of National Data

Closely related to the last challenge is the absence of a national citizen’s database. We live in a world where people, including criminals, are always on the move. People always seek to outsmart security officers by relocating from one jurisdiction to another. Personnel of the police force should be able to catch a criminal without physically being on ground by simply entering a feed from a CCTV into a database that has software or information such as facial recognition, last known address, etc. Another factor in this regard is that policing is more effective when it is preventive than punitive. To this end, the absence of a national identity data has not helped to promote the course of men and women of the police force. This has made them resort to random arrests which, in most cases than none, lead to incarceration of innocent by-standers while the real criminals go undetected. A national database should contain profiles of those who have both committed minor crimes and let go or have done time. These information will help officers when profiling a suspect or dealing with citizens. They will not have to treat everyone as a suspect if they have information that show them we are not all criminals.

It is possible that these challenges are not all-encompassing but I will stop here.

With the challenges listed above, one would wonder how we still have police officers at all and how they are able to carry out their duties judging by the conditions they have to work with. To further complicate their situation, the citizenry do not spare them whenever their cases come up for discussion. While I am not asking that Nigerians condone any of the lapses in the police force, I am using this medium to ask that we treat them with more sympathy and understanding than we currently do.

Having listed the challenges of the police force in my opinion, the next question would be “Which of these challenges can a state/community policing structure resolve?” I will let you be the judge of that. In a previous article I wrote on “Restructuring”, I broached the question “how does restructuring help us curb corruption which has been identified as the bane of our national development?” The purpose of getting us to ask these critical questions is not to dismiss the importance of issues like Restructuring, State/Community Policing, etc. but to help us advance the right reasons for doing what we set out to do. Because the right things done at the wrong time and for the wrong reasons may still turn out bad. It is my hope that we will not rush to create a decentralised policing structure just because of the present security lapses but because it is the right thing to do at this time and going forward.

I am for restructuring as long as it is done properly (I have previously written on this in an article titled Restructuring Nigeria. When and How). In the same vein, I am for a decentralised policing structure (what we call State/Community Police) however, the narrative that we have insecurity challenges because Governors don’t command/control CPs or DPOs is a fallacy in my view. In the US where we supposedly copied our democracy and where policing is decentralised to the level of county, Mayors, governors and/or the Presidents doesn’t control the police chiefs the constitution and establishment act does. Hence, if we are seeking a decentralised police just so that some politicians will have more power to do as they please or to simply point their finger and the police shoot, then we are not ready.

These same people who complain of not having executive powers over the Police Commissioners or DPOs are the same persons who have turn them into errand men and women. When a curfew is imposed in any area of the state, it is the same police command whom they claim not to have executive control over that enforce it. When they oppress their political opponents, they use the same police command whom they don’t have control over. When they go on a road trip (even the almost non-existent Local Government Chairmen), it is the same police personnel that the use to create a convoy and run other citizens off the road. So what other control do they seek that they don’t currently have? Is it the power of appointment?

To wrap this, I urge that we approach this issue of a decentralised police with utmost caution. It is a good idea. It is necessary especially for a federation. It should be welcomed. But it can quickly get out of hand and become worse than where we currently are. I advise that the brightest minds from within and outside the country (not of the police though) should be consulted and the national assembly should hold a robust deliberation on the subject that is devoid of political affiliation. Also, case studies should be taken from countries that practice it with bias for those with close population strength as ours. If Nigerians are then ready to face the new challenges that this new structure will bring and prepared to adequately police the police, only then are we ready for this.

My name is TCP Whyte. I am on a mission to positively change the world.