As the safety of life, limb and property continues to be undermined by chronic insecurity across Nigeria, State actors appear to be grasping at all straws to demonstrate they are doing something to tame the monster. Since mounting the saddle of the Nigerian Presidency on May 29, 2023, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has flattered to deceive with respect to the mandate of securing lives and property. Although barely one year in office, the insecurity he inherited from his predecessor, ex-President Muhammadu Buhari, has no shown any sign of abating. Open source data aggregated by the media present evidence, which shows escalating killings by state and non-state actors.
One of such datasets shows that in the first 45 days of the Tinubu administration, over 600 people had been killed by non-state actors across the country. The data further shows how Nigerian lives were lost to the nefarious activities of bandits, Boko Haram insurgents, ethnic militias, armed robbers and other non-state actors. Data from SBM Intelligence, a security data gathering think tank indicated that about 629 Nigerians were killed in the last 45 days under President Tinubu. Another open-source dataset shows how 6931 people were killed in the first 10 months of the Tinubu administration.
Given the alarming number of lives, which have been lost to insecurity, the Federal Government started making moves towards creating a de-centralized policing system. In February, the Tinubu administration announced plans to work with State governors to achieve the goal of creating state police. According to the government, the move will check the rising wave of insecurity in the country. A Committee to work out the modalities for the creation of state police was immediately set up. However, experts have cautioned that the establishment of state police should not be seen as the magic wand, which would take away all the security problems in the country. State actors were basically admonished that they should not be overly optimistic about the notion that state police are the silver bullet, which would wipe out the current crisis of insecurity in Nigeria.
This was the consensus at the recent CLEEN Foundation dialogue, during which stakeholders delved into a comparative analysis of the centralized and de-centralized policing system. The dialogue therefore offered the space for experts and stakeholders to interrogate the issues involved. One major point of convergence was the perspective that the government should not be carried away with the thinking that putting in place state police will magically sweep away all the security issues bedevilling the country.
In fact, knowledge was shared to show that insecurity in Nigeria is not a recent development, which would be addressed by the waving of a magic wand. This point was strongly canvassed by Professor Etannibi Alemika, who set the tone for the conversation in the keynote address. He started by describing Nigeria’s current insecurity as a cumulative problem, which should be traced back to 1986. He said it was around this period that the government’s structural adjustment program led to the dehumanization, and impoverishment of Nigerians, while the country’s human development index started sliding down. Alemika narrated that these challenges on the economic front began to precipitate variants of insecurity, including banditry, terrorism and kidnapping.
His words: “These are consequences of bad governance; it is not a question of centralized or de-centralized police. But the bone (of state police) has be thrown around, and like a dog, we are all running after it. Let us better have clarity on the issues…
“Once you have to police a society by the degree of the weapons your police carry, it means you no longer have a society that is governed by consent, but rather by force or coercion.”
The renowned criminologist further clarified that policing is a very broad concept, which refers to many things, which when brought together, is about how to advance peace, security and safety in a society.
“And so, it (policing) is through value orientation, processes, activities and techniques, which are deliberately mobilized for preserving security, order and peace in society or community. So, if we take value orientation for example, policing through value, starts from the day a child is born into a family and is being socialized into what is an appropriate conduct and to the values and norms of society.
He continued: “That is a form of policing; you are guiding that individual through value orientation, which if internalized, will ensure their conduct conforms with the basic values and expectations of society. Then of course, we have processes by which we prevent revenge, retribution or retaliation by the individual, and therefore we try to ensure we have peace in society.
So, all that is policing; the focal point therefore is that many agencies and organizations in the society are involved in policing. The main activities of the police are also policing; therefore, police are one of the organizations, groups or mechanism by which a society is policed. It is not even the most important; once police become your most important mechanism of policing a society, you must have to create a police state to be able to do that, which means people have to be forced, coerced or compelled in order to be able to be able to ensure peace in society.”
Contributing during the panel discussion, Executive Director of the Rule of Law and Accountability Centre (RULAC), Okechukwu Nwanguma echoed similar points. On the question of whether what is required is the centralized or de-centralized policing model, he said that was immaterial. He gave the example of Denmark, which is an advanced democracy, but operates a centralized policing system.
He said: There is a country like Denmark, which is also an advanced democracy, and it has a centralized policing system. I think the question is not whether the police is centralized or not centralized. It is about the conditions that exist for addressing socio-economic and political problems. The police only react to crime; it is not the cause of crime, and it cannot actually guarantee security as long the conditions that create insecurity exist.”
Nwanguma argued that the conditions which make insecurity and crime fester include social inequality, corruption and poverty. In his view, unless governance, which is the cause of insecurity is fixed, no amount of police, whether centralized or de-centralized can address insecurity.
“Our experience from the Native Authority and Local Government Police has also shown us that although de-centralization can have some advantages, it can also lead to de-centralizing the problems of the police as it is today. And the question we need to ask is: since Nigeria returned to civil rule, there have been several government panels and committees that were set up to reform the police. They have made recommendations to strengthen the police, but these measures have not been implemented.
“And then we are saying that our answer to increasing insecurity and police inefficiency is to create state police. How will State police be different from the police as it is? We already have a semblance of state police and we have seen what the governors are doing with them.”
The civil rights and accountability activist canvassed the point that with the State governors in full control of executive powers, and as they emasculate the judiciary and legislatures in the states, while privatizing the local governments and state independent Electoral Commissions, if given State police, they will be armed with additional weapons to shrink the civic space and turn Nigeria into a police state.
“In the quest for state police, we are likely going to be moving towards a police state, if we are not careful. The question is: what oversight are we putting in place to ensure state police does not become an additional tool in the hands of the type of governors we have in this country, who will use it to deal with political opponents?”
