Governors, state police and political immaturity

July 22, 2017

The Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF) finally and unequivocally indicated last week its support for the restructuring of Nigeria with particular reference to the establishment of state police. The announcement of this support came after the forum met in Abuja on Wednesday, with the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Ibrahim Idris, in attendance. Though the police rehashed a robust argument against the idea, insisting that the country was not politically mature for it, the governors went ahead to constitute a committee to look into the modalities for implementing what they believe to be the answer to ‘mounting insecurity’ in the country.

In terms of specifics, Mr Idris had argued that a federal police was still the best structure for policing Nigeria. He also suggested that with expanded recruitment totalling some 150,000 policemen over five years, adequate funding probably through the agency of a Police Reform Trust Fund, and the deployment of modern technology in place of manual policing, policing would be far more efficient than it is today. The IGP did not spell out why he thought the country was politically immature for state police. But in reiterating that the current police structure is federal, he misses the constitutional point by a wide margin. The police structure today, constitutionally speaking, is unitary rather than federal, and reactive and presumptuous rather than proactive. What ails the police today is not just funding gap or personnel shortage. The problem is deeper and more complicated than police IGs have made it out to be.

In the estimation of the IGP, the case he and other stakeholders before him have made for the police is persuasive enough. He recently reprised this argument while speaking before the House of Representatives Committee on Police Affairs at a public hearing on a bill for an Act to Establish “The Nigeria Police Reform Trust Fund” and a “Bill for an Act to Amend the Explosives Act of 1964.” According to him: “…Out of the total sum of N1,164,405,193,431 proposed for capital expenditure by the police between 2012 and 2016, N64,999,567,375 was appropriated out of which N40,474,332,673 was cash-backed, leaving a balance of N24,552,234,702 yet to be released till date…From the estimated sum of N19.9 billion required for fuelling of 14,306 vehicles, including 3,115 motorcycles nationwide, only N809 million was released; out of N7.04 billion required for maintenance of vehicles only N486 million was released while out of N14.5 billion required for uniforms and accoutrements (kits), only N1 billion was released… The police require N700 billion for rehabilitation of existing barracks/quarters; N200 billion for local travels and transport; N1.133 trillion yearly for procurement of arms and ammunitions, purchase of new vehicles, gun boats, helicopters and other technological needs as well as N200 billion for installation of CCTV cameras, database and video cameras in all police stations across the country as required by Administration of Criminal Justice Act, 2015 to build a functional crime laboratories and other investigative aids.”

In summary, said the IGP, the police would need about N560 billion for the next five years to turn things around and give Nigeria a fully functional and effective police force. He bases this summary financial need on the report submitted by the Parry Osayande and M.D. Yusufu police reform committee reports which submitted in 2008 that the police needed about N2.8 trn to make positive and desired changes in the police force. That study may be some nine years old, and pricing may have changed in ways that probably render many of the underlying assumptions incorrect, but on the whole, should the police be availed of the humongous amount they have requested, either directly through normal budgetary processes or through special trust funds, some positive changes are doubtless bound to be recorded.

However, the trust fund solution is still a long way off and even uncertain in its final composition. And as far as the nation’s annual budgets are concerned, it is inconceivable that the police would ever receive a quarter of what they need or ask for. Meanwhile, insecurity has grown in scope and sophistication, as policing has lagged dangerously and sometimes incompetently far behind. In addition, what worsens the problem is the structure of the police, a problem the police leadership is reluctant to admit, let alone confront. The policing needs of the country are diverse, complex and often indisputably localised. For decades, the country had addressed these diverse and complex needs with just one unresponsive and banal template. While the arguments of Mr Idris are sensible and not misplaced, they are not far-reaching enough to address a problem that constantly morphs indistinguishably along state and regional lines. The current policing structure indeed pretends not to recognise that most states have in one way or the other constituted state police units to suit their own local needs. Indeed, while the country lives in denial on policing and security issues, states have gone ahead, sometimes rapidly, and at other times peremptorily, to lay the structure for the operation of federalism in its classical and constitutional sense. These observations cannot be denied. It is perhaps time the police and the presidency recognised the limits and dangers of a unitary government when the constitution pretends to federalism.

The Governors’ Forum appears more realistic than both the police and the presidency in grappling with the country’s increasingly dysfunctional democratic processes. By constituting a committee to address the policing needs of states, particularly the restructuring of Nigeria’s unitary police structure, the governors have shown that they appreciate where the shoe is pinching them. However, the NGF special purpose committee is just the first tentative step in a process that is certain to grind on for quite some time. It is clear that the National Assembly is engaged in constitutional reform, and though that effort has yet to bear fruits, it seems this time, it will not be labour lost. Governors are bound to have some influence over the constitutional reform process kick-started by the National Assembly. Consequently, it may already appear that state police is one topic on which there will be early and fairly less controversial consensus.

But whether at the Governors’ Forum definitive level or National Assembly procedural reform level, there will be effort to understand why there are fears about the sobriety and maturity of states and their chief executives in managing the enormous powers state police would confer. It is to be expected that safeguards would be built into the system. Given the irresponsibility of some state chief executives, weak and conniving Houses of Assembly, and sometimes ingratiating judiciary, fears of misuse of police powers may not be unfounded. But the world is changing, and few things can be done behind closed doors and out of earshot in the age of social media.

More importantly, citizens and civil society groups are maturing in the art of claiming and enforcing their rights. These processes are now thought to be irreversible, even in totalitarian regimes. One of the fears that accompanied and threatened to vitiate the decolonisation process was whether the independence movements had produced enough mature leaders and democrats capable of projecting their newly acquired powers in healthy ways. Those fears did not stop the independence movements nor the consummation of the decolonisation process. It is becoming apparent that no reservations nor trepidations can stop the rewriting of a unitary constitution into a federal constitution.

The Governors’ Forum should be encouraged to see the changes they are proposing through to the end. In the same manner, whatever is proposed by the National Assembly concerning state police should in the final analysis be harmonised with the governors’ proposals. The best the police can do is to see how well they can integrate into what is destined to be a new form of policing in Nigeria. That new destination is not far away.

Subscribe to our Newsletter

* indicates required

Intuit Mailchimp