Re: Female Police Officers Wearing Hijab On Duty, IGP Baba Inadvertently Prepares Nigeria For Regional/State Police System – John Egbeazien Oshodi

 Female Police Officers Wearing Hijab On Duty, IGP Baba Inadvertently Prepares Nigeria For Regional/State Police System – John Egbeazien Oshodi

It’s time for PMA ADVANCED RESTRUCTURING AGENDA!— Adesanya-Davies

I read with keen interest this morning an article titled, “Female Police Officers Wearing Hijab On Duty, IGP Baba Inadvertently Prepares Nigeria For Regional/State Police System” by John Egbeazien Oshodi and I so much agree completely wth the author’s projections and conclusions while making further recomendations.

Published on March 13, 2022, by Opinion Nigeria, John Egbeazien states: “In Nigeria, Sharia, or Islamic law, has long been instituted as part of the 1999 Nigerian constitution, allowing twelve out of thirty-six states to have Islam as the dominant religion and Sharia courts as well as customary courts.
One of the twelve states is Yobe, the home of Usman Alkali-Baba, the Inspector General of Police (IGP). Baba’s current implementation of the Islamic dress code for female police officers in the country follows logically from the observance of the dress code as required by Islam.

Some months ago, Hajia Hajara Usman Baba, the wife of the Inspector-General of Police, Baba, announced the need to ban the sale of beer parlours in police barracks, which is akin to the Hisbah religious police in Northern Nigeria that prohibits the sale and consumption of alcohol in a predominantly Muslim region.

While Nigeria appears to be a secular nation with a constitution that is mixed with European, American, and Arabic like elements, for Baba, it is a breach of Islam’s strict dress code if policewomen of Islamic faith do not wear earrings, hijab, or head scarves under their berets. He is actually correct by global standards.

Baba, inadvertently or unintentionally, has regionalized the police, at least symbolically, a blessing in disguise for the likes of Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, who has restated over and over the need for state police in the country. Baba’s moves point to the scientific fact that a police system that reflects the regional and cultural characteristics of the wider society could better match the needs of the people in the region in terms of managing law and order and influencing law enforcement.

The Nigeria Police Force, which was fully initiated in 1930 by the British colonial masters to quote Governor Abdullahi Ganduje of Kano State, laid faulty foundations, including our public institutions, as it did not fully take into consideration the marked difference in culture, land tenure systems, local government administration, education, and justice systems. Thanking Baba is the Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC), which has been demanding the use of hijab in the security and uniformed agencies for years.

As long as these major cultural differences exist, marked by regionalism, acts like that of Baba, will be seen as prejudicial. That is why a southern Christian former Deputy Inspector General of Police, Parry Osayande, has faulted Baba’s approval of hijab for female police officers. Along the same line of concern is Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa, SAN, who sees Baba as using his office to allegedly enforce his religion under any guise. Adegboruwa states that Baba’s actions run contrary to the 1999 constitution that purports to be neutral in religious matters. Not true.

Nigerians, in general, are in denial about their country’s divisions, challenges, and troubled history. The truth be told, Nigeria functions under a sort of muddled constitution. As such, I suggest that regional and state policing take full force in the future.

That will allow the Muslim mode of dressing for the Northern Police, while in the non-northern states, which are mostly secular and Christian-oriented, the police will dress in their own distinctive colours, which are historically marked with European-American styles.

If anyone asks Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, and President Muhammadu Buhari if the current Nigerian government believes that the constitution allows Muslim women to wear hijab in line with the teachings of their faith, the answer will likely be yes.

Baba has some months to leave office and he may be incorrect to explicitly introduce an Islamic type of dress without the blessing of any legislative laws or police supervising authorities, especially when Nigeria is still not a fully Islamic country. Inadvertently, he has set the stage for the incoming presidency and governors to institute a state police system as it is critical to the immediate needs of different localities of the country.

As an extension to his brilliant projections, another
article in Businessdayon on “NG – Regional vs state police: Which way Nigeria?” by Obinna Nwachukwu on April 20, 2021, further expanciates:
“Rather than the current piecemeal approach to security issues, it is better for the country to go for state police – a norm in other parts of the world.

A well-organised/structured state police has the potential to resolve the incessant security conundrum in Nigeria. The mantra has gained popularity as a result of the surge in the rate of highly sophisticated crimes in the country, and the inability of the Nigeria police to contain the challenges.

The closeness of the state police to the society of its jurisdiction places it in more proactive position for the detection and uprooting of any emerging crime before it grows.

The fear that state police will lead to a situation where there will be two rivalling institutions of the same responsibility, duty and nature in the country or that it would be used by politicians against their opponents are not enough to reject it.

No matter how it is viewed, state police is the best option for Nigeria now. All over the world, to police properly, you need to have people within the locality to be part of policing.

State police: Examples from other lands

Argentina: In Argentina, as a federal country, each province has its own independent police force and is responsible for its funding, training and equipment. State police agencies are responsible for all the territory of a determinate state.

Australia: Each state of Australia has its own state police force. Municipalities do not have police forces and it is left to the state forces to police all geographic areas within their respective states.

Australia does have a national police force, the Australian Federal Police (AFP), whose role is to enforce the laws of the Commonwealth (both criminal law and civil law) as well as to protect the interests of the Commonwealth – domestically and internationally.

The AFP does, however, provide ‘state’ policing for the Australian Capital Territory, Jervis Bay Territory, and Australia’s other external territories.

Brazil: Each state in Brazil has two state police forces. They are civil police comprising the State criminal investigative police and the Military Police. Both are uniformed gendarmerie forces fulfilling roles as State police.

Canada: Law enforcement in Canada operates at the federal, provincial, and local levels. Three provinces of Canada have a dedicated police force, with jurisdiction over some or all of the provinces.

Germany: The Landespolizei (or LaPo) is a term used in the Federal Republic of Germany to denote the law enforcement services that perform law enforcement duties in the States of Germany. The German federal constitution leaves the majority of law enforcement responsibilities to the 16 states of the country.

India: In India, each state and union territory has a state police force and its own distinct State Police Services, headed by the Commissioner of Police (State) or Director-General of Police (DGP) who is an Indian Police Service officer. The IPS is not a law enforcement agency in its own right; rather it is the body to which all senior police officers of all states belong regardless of the agency for which they work. The state police are responsible for maintaining law and order in townships of the state and the rural areas.

United States of America (USA): In the United States, state police (also termed Highway Patrol, State Patrol, or State Highway Patrol) are a police body unique to 49 of the US states, having statewide authority to conduct law enforcement activities and criminal investigations. Hawaii, being a widely dispersed archipelago, has four separate county-based police agencies, rather than a single statewide police agency.

From the above examples, it is obvious that several countries are practising state policing and it is working for them. So, why can’t we follow their footsteps? When you post somebody from another tribe, he will not know where to enter and where not to enter and how to go about things to be able to get his work done because he is not part of the culture. He also will not be familiar with the terrain.

Policemen are supposed to be friends of the people and they are supposed to be able to interact and know the people they are dealing with. Once you know them, and you are in the society and the police officer is an indigene, he will easily know all the people with questionable character. He will know what jobs the people are doing.

Also, state police will enhance the understanding between the policed and the police. It will also reduce bribery because a police officer will not easily collect bribe from someone he knows but can easily do that with someone he does not know.

During general elections, the local police would be able to know those that snatched ballot boxes and committed other electoral offences. State police will even address Boko Haram menace because insurgents are human beings and live in the communities; so people know them. State police goes together with community policing. People would also be able to identify those engaging in kidnapping, armed robbery and other crimes in their neighbourhood.

Therefore presently, virtually all regions in Nigeria are in support of and yearning for restructuring, through a fundamental rejigging of the entire fabric of what is left of Nigeria.

May I conclude that, “Restructuring”, is what the country truly needs now, as Ebun Olu Adegboruwa, SAN rightly puts it. It means, “Fiscal federalism or resource control, state police and devolution of powers to the states and local governments, which will empower every part of the union for greater productivity.”

It’s time for PMA ADVANCED RESTRUCTURING AGENDA!