Why Nigeria needs to look beyond creation of state police – Nwanguma, RULAAC ED
By Daniel Kanu
Okey Nwanguma is the national coordinator and executive director, Rule of Law and Accountability Advocacy Centre (RULAAC).
He spoke exclusively to Sunday Sun on insecurity in the country and the danger of state police, the prevalent hardship and assessment of the President Tinubu leadership so far, among other critical issues. Excerpt:
As one well informed in the area of policing, do you think that the call for state police if finally endorsed by the National Assembly will provide the needed solution to tackling the present state of insecurity in the country?
The question is whether state police is going to address the root cause of insecurity and if the federal police as it is, is not effective, which is why they are advocating for state police, why is it not functioning? For me, I think that we need to look deeper; we need to have more informed conversation about state police. My position is that the causes of insecurity are socio-economic and political issues like: social inequality, unemployment, poverty, hunger, corruption etc, these are some of the things causing, provoking, igniting insecurity. The police only respond to reactions to all these issues, crimes. So, we need to address the fundamentals first. But more importantly too, if we don’t address the problems that affect the police, as we have refused to properly address it today, what you will do is to multiply the problems, multiplying one problem to the 36 states of the federation.
The police need to be reformed, no doubt. The police are highly centralized and ineffective, so what needs to be done is to address all the previous issues raised by different police reform committees set up from the time of President Olusegun Obasanjo, President Yar’Adua, the time of President Jonathan, Buhari, all of them set up one police reform committee or the other on police matter and they all made recommendations. I did an extensive research on it, so we need to look at their different recommendations. And you may want to ask: Did they implement the recommendations? They did not and they are talking about state police.
The way the country is today if you create state police, it is like giving the state governors more latitude to abuse. Already they have pocketed the judiciary and the legislature in their different states, the local government is non-existent as they are in the pocket of the state governors, just like the state independent electoral commission. If you give the governors state police that will be an additional armament to stifle the civic space and to deal with perceived enemies. There is serious need to begin to look at the inherent danger in allowing state governors to own their state police. Considering what they are doing with even the security creations or outfit at their disposal, you can only imagine the abuse that will come when given state police. Look at what Hisbah is doing in Kano, in Imo and Ebonyi you see Ebubeagu, and you know the abuse, there is neighborhood watch in Lagos etc. So, what we need to do is to address the root cause of insecurity and crime rather than addressing the symptom.
Chapter 2 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria addresses issues of socio-economic rights, such as right to life, right to education, right to health, right to employment, social security right and all that. If the people are employed, if poverty is reduced and quality of life improved, if the government implements or properly addresses those rights, crime will be less, insecurity will on its own reduce to the barest minimum and will not pose the type of threat as we are having it today. When the people can barely breathe, what do you expect? When there is so much hardship in the land and so much injustice, what will you expect? So, as I said earlier, there is the need to address key fundamental issues of the wellbeing of the people. What the government is focusing on is on the symptoms, and such cannot provide lasting solution to address the menace. First make the police that you have effective before creating more problems.
Let’s look at the number of officers in the police; do you think we have enough to police the country?
The number is inadequate, but of course, policing is not done just only by number though we need number, but we also need technology. Crime all over the world now is getting more sophisticated and they are embracing technology to fight crime. Here we don’t have the number, they are not well equipped, they are not well motivated and they don’t have the capacity to deal with modern crime, certainly, they cannot be effective. They need to bring in technology, train the police properly, adequate manpower etc. I hear some people say: merge Civil Defence with police, and I think that’s a good idea, because why are we creating more security agencies when we are not able to fund the Nigeria police. When you merge them, it can address the issue of manpower since police recruitment cannot solve it. There is need for forensic too. Look if the welfare of the officers is not taken care of, if they are not well motivated then you can’t expect much commitment from them.
How do you react to the saying that the government has politicized security?
But that is true. If you look at what happened during the time of President Buhari, when appointment of Security Chiefs and other key positions was highly political, not based on experience, competence or seniority. They don’t look at who is next on the line, they can, for instance, appoint a commissioner of police and promote him ahead of those before him, retire them because the president wants a particular individual. So, it’s political because their focus is not on competence, but political consideration. The truth is that even the insecurity that we are talking about, a lot of people are benefitting from it. You see some individuals calling themselves negotiators, negotiating for bandits or negotiating for government. Can you imagine that? You don’t politicize security because it is a very sensitive issue.
How will you assess the President Tinubu-led government in their security effort?
We are not seeing significant improvement in their fight against insecurity. So, it is either enough is not being done or that they are not doing the right thing. If you take the Southeast, for instance, a lot of people have argued that government needs to explore dialogue, negotiations rather than brute force. Brute force is not the only way to go. For example, what are the grievances that the people have that is making them to take up arm against the state? You dialogue with them rather than using brute force. Government has not been using proper approach in most cases because it is not all about using force. Like in the case of the Southeast, you don’t need a prophet to tell you that the release of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, IPOB leader, will go a long way to douse tension. It will help to reduce one of the factors some groups, criminal elements are using to destabilize the area. They will be telling you that they are doing what they are doing as a protest for the unlawful detention of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu. I think it is important for the government to consider releasing him, engaging the people in dialogue. That is when you will get the peace that will last.
There is so much hardship in the country contrary to what the people expected when President Tinubu was sworn in, how do you look at that?
There were two things that President Tinubu was saying throughout his campaign period. He said it was his turn, so he didn’t really tell Nigerians what his programme or agenda was. He also said that he was going to continue where Buhari stopped. So, to continue where Buhari stopped is to take Nigerians deeper into poverty, into hardship, that is what we are seeing.
What we are witnessing is not strange because those who can see beyond the ordinary eye knew that things will be hard and they are not surprised. Look at the first thing he did was to remove fuel subsidy without any plan for anything to cushion the effect, nothing like palliative plan that should come with it.
They are going from one sector to another sector taxing the people. So, what they are doing is in line with their policy of milking Nigerians, they don’t care about how the people are feeling or how they are surviving. Their concern is to deepen poverty and hardship for Nigerians, so far their interest is guaranteed. Too bad and I am afraid of what will happen if we continue this way.
Nigerians have been pushed to the wall. I think the best option is for Nigerians not to keep quiet, but to continue to push that government must do the right thing. Today, is hike on electricity tariff, they will enter another sector after electricity sector. The government most times say they are running all-inclusive government, but I have not seen or know any Federal Government policy towards the Southeast because nothing much is happening in the zone. What I see is that a lot of the governors, those who served as governors who worked against the Southeast were rewarded with ministerial position, and most of them are still there serving the interest of their party, APC. When President Tinubu went to Imo State to attend second inauguration of Governor Hope Uzodimma, he said insecurity has ended in Imo State, but within that week before he came some police officers were killed and there was a lot of violence in the state, but rather than give assurance of government putting more efforts and commitment to address insecurity, they were telling us that insecurity has ended.
It means he is not in touch about the security reality in the state.
