The need for the establishment of state policing is long overdue. Therefore, the meeting convened by President Tinubu ‘last week’ to initiate a process to set up state policing is a welcome development. However, I have some concerns about how the structure and setup of the state and community policing will be, so that we ensure that we have a state and community policing that will succeed.
PROCESS AND MODALITIES
I am of the opinion that some of the key next steps include; the setup of think tanks for state and community police at national and state levels; undertaking gap analyses at national and state levels and follow-up comparison of notes to ensure that common issues and also peculiarities are identified ab initio, so that the state legislations will address those common issues and also peculiarities to ensure the formulation of coherent policies and operational protocols that will handshake the federal policy framework for efficiencies, effectiveness and positive impacts; there should also be robust stakeholder engagements to get the buy-in of all stakeholders.
I am aware that there are some papers and term sheets on community policing that have been done by some stakeholders. There are/were also existing community policing models in Nigeria that have been operational, for example, the Hisbah in Kano State, the Amotekoun in Ondo State, and the Ebube Agu in Ebonyi State. Therefore, Committees and national and state levels of people of proven experience, expertise, track record, and integrity, could be mandated as think tanks to come up with some concepts that would be reviewed at state and national levels as part of the process of achieving robust, practical, achievable and effective community policing models.
The next crucial step is the legislative process, to enable the enactment of State and community policing at local government, state, and national levels. I recognize the fact that the 10th National Assembly and some states have already initiated processes of constitutional review and legislation to that effect. However, an important question for us to immediately address includes: what are the roles of the state and community police? What could be the interplays or interplaying roles between the local government, and the state and federal police? What will be the state of play? What would be the protocols and/ or standard operating procedures (SOPs)? What would be the escalation points, and what would be the boundaries of authority and accountability? What will be the safeguards to ensure that the state Governors do not abuse the powers of controlling the state and/ or local government police? etc.
It is worthy of note that the role of community policing is largely information and intelligence gathering, fostering peaceful co-existence, ensuring some level of law enforcement, and taking pre-emptive and preventive measures/steps, to curtail or contain threats (kinetic and non-kinetic) while relating and keying-into the federal policy when and if necessary. There is the notion the state police could also be armed, and that is why the legislative process is very important. Readers may recall that in February last year, Justice Riman Fatun of the Federal High Court, Abakalaki, disbanded the Ebubeagu as a result of illegal arrests, extortions, possession of illegal firearms, human rights abuses, etc. This is a reminder of how important the process of setting up the state and community police will be in ensuring that it will not be abused.
In addition, because it will be a new instrument of power and coercion at the subnational since its existence and abolishment in Nigeria over 60 years ago, we should expect and plan to deal with the teething problems of how such immense power of the state should be managed and if necessary contained especially given the fact that even the Nigerian Police Force is facing multiple cases of abuse of power, human rights abuses, etc. Therefore, the fundamentals of community policing have to be right strong, and the pillars have to be firm and enduring. I advocate for thorough legislation, I urge us not to “rush” the legislation and in the process enact weak laws to support our community policing which in the end could backfire on the good citizens and residents of Nigeria. We must be careful with the timeline of legislation before enactment into law, then the setup of the forces, the recruitment process, the tooling and kitting, doctrine and training, etc. before fully operationalizing the community police forces, and then we start feeling impacts. In my opinion, an expedited process could take up to 1 year or more before we start seeing and feeling the overall impact of Community policing depending on how seriously it is taken and how well it is set up and activated at the subnational level.
THE BIGGER PICTURE OBJECTIVE – THE NIGERIA ARMED FORCES
While the euphoria of the need for setting up community policing is overtaking us, we should not lose sight of the bigger objective. The Nigerian Armed Forces are seriously undermanned and under-served. There are currently about 370,000 policemen and women in the Nigeria Police Force with a ratio of 1 police officer to 600 Nigerians. Recently the IGP made a public declaration that the Nigeria Police force requires an additional 190,000 personnel which in my opinion is not even enough, we have less than 300,000 military personnel, and less than 30,000 Nigeria Immigration officers manning our land, marine, and air borders, with over 1,400 unmanned and illegal land borders. Secure borders are a critical success factor in securing the nation. There are also less than 10,000 Nigerian Civil Defense Corps officers in the entire Country. The aforementioned law enforcement agencies have their statutory roles in maintaining law and order and also ensuring Nigeria’s internal security. The shortfall of boots on the ground of these agencies is reflecting the increasing state of insecurity in Nigeria. Therefore, while we are addressing the issue of state and community policing, I urge President Tinubu and the National Assembly to as a matter of national priority increase the capacity of our military, police, immigration, civil defense corps, and other law enforcement agencies so that we don’t lose focus on the bigger picture and come back later to react to multi-dimensional challenges that we may not be able to contain.
FUNDING IMPERATIVES
While we are all excited about State and community policing, let us also note that for the past 5 years about 20 States of the Federation have not been paying the minimum wages of N30,000.00 agreed to between the Government and organized labor since 2019. Some states regularly owe the state employees monthly salaries sometimes for months. Now we have a very crucial national priority of tackling insecurity. The Community Policing project will test the resolve of the governors because state police have to be funded by the State Governments. The man and material resources requirement to set up and operate state police in terms of Capital Expenditure and operations expenses and recurring expenses must be properly planned and catered for. I believe that we should have robust, fully functional, efficient, and effective community policing and not a ragtag arrangement of some people who will not be able to deliver the mandate.
CONCERNS ABOUT THE POTENTIAL ABUSE OF THE POWER OF COERCION BY THE GOVERNORS
I share the concern of many Nigerians about the possible abuse of the State Police if and when enacted into law by some State Governors, to the detriment of democracy, and the fundamental human rights of the people. There are concerns that some Governors could abuse this instrument of coercion and power to their undue advantage while they use the same instrument to anybody or people that they consider adversaries. I have given an instance with the abolishment of Ebubeagu by the Federal High Court in Ebonyi. We have a political system that has given so much power to the Governors and to that extent, such powers are misused by some Governors. Therefore, the concern is how these organizations will be properly and adequately used for the purpose and objectives that will be set and not for political and/ or parochial interests.
Accordingly, it is important that the National Assembly make adequate provisions of safeguards during the amendment of the Constitution to ensure that there can be interventions by the 4 arms of the Federal Government (Executive, Legislative, and Judiciary) to save any state that will be unfortunate to have Governor who will use the State Police structure and machinery for monstrous purposes or any reason(s) other than to protect and serve the peoples. If this is not done then the State police will become a problem that will be worse than our mounting socio-economic and security challenges because we would have given constitutional backing to anarchy.
