Why State Police is a desideratum

It is obvious now that both the Executive and the Legislature at the national level have come to the inescapable conclusion that State Police is a desideratum in Nigeria today. Both arms of government are working on bringing to birth a second policing system in Nigeria. This decision is apparently given a sense of urgency by the wave of kidnappings that have now affected areas of the country that seemed untouchable before now. Ibadan, capital of South West, a city of culture, intellectualism and liberalism has now been invaded by the raging uptick in terrorism. The people of Ibadan and the South West are now wearing wrinkles of worry. For years now we all have seen puzzled by the escalating traction of insecurity in the country. Now, that puzzlement has ripened to worry, and we all seem to think that hell is at our doorstep. We had a chance to bite the bullet several years ago but we did not.

The All Progressives Congress (APC) had set up a Committee headed by Mr Nasir El-Rufai, then Governor of Kaduna State. It asked the Committee to go to the six geo-political zones and ask the people what they wanted: “True federalism or Unitarism.” The people overwhelmingly opted for true federalism with devolution of powers and greater autonomy to sub-national entities. They also asked for the establishment of State Police for the effective combat of insecurity that was raging rigorously then. President Muhammadu Buhari was out of the country then, on account of his health challenges. Even at that time Nigeria seemed as fragile as a porcelain security wise. While serving as the Acting President in 2018, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, brilliant man with a passion for problem-solving, pushed for the creation of State Police as demanded by the people in all the six geo-political zones. He stated that Nigeria was too large to be effectively policed from Abuja. He said: “You cannot police a country of this size with a police command that functions out of Abuja.” He said that a police officer unfamiliar with the local language is at a massive disadvantage and that decentralization was a crucial part of the national security architecture. Most people clapped for Osinbajo because they thought that the time for the decentralization of our security architecture had come. When Buhari came back he stated emphatically like a war proclamation that State Police was not an option. The radiant glow of a smile that had appeared on people’s faces faded away. His words were aflame with rigidity. It was obvious that he and Osinbajo were not cut from the same cloth on this matter. They were not singing from the same hymn book, the hymn book of problem-solving. They had a gilt-edged opportunity approved by the people who voted them into power to solve a nagging problem but because the President preferred hegemonism which unitarism offered him, he scoffed at it. Several times after that he pooh-poohed the idea saying that the states would not have the financial resources to pay their policemen consistently. But this was a worthless generalization because all the states were supporting financially and generously the Federal Police in their states. His second reason for rejecting the State Police idea was that State Governors would, more likely than not, use the State Police to intimidate political opponents. If that was his fear wouldn’t it have been beneficial to set up a Committee to work out an implementation template that would accommodate such fears instead of simply throwing into the refuse bin an idea that could have helped Nigeria to tackle a serious problem for which he had no solution? He also always mentioned the fact that the relationship between State Governors and Local Governments was strained. But what did he do about this? Nothing. It became the lot of his successor President Bola Tinubu to give local governments autonomy. Instead, Buhari preferred what he thought would be the solution to the insecurity problem by saying “ The role of traditional rulers must not be undermined because in their areas they know who is who, even by families, not to even talk of individuals. So we have to revert to that system for us to have effective security in the localities.” I wonder what he would have said today if he had been alive, as traditional rulers in some parts of the country have been killed or kidnapped. It is a tragedy that the past that we ignored has now come to bite us today. Insecurity today is not low hanging fruits. It is high hanging fruits, fruits that are hanging there in the sky, far from the reach of persons with orthodox methods. It is Franklin Roosevelt, America’s former President who said that “no man can tame a tiger into a kitten by stroking it.” On matters of insecurity Buhari had no victory walk because he managed it with underwhelming success. That is what Tinubu inherited.

But the thrust of this column today is “why did we the followers not get the President we voted for to do what we thought was right?” People in the six geo-political zones wanted State Police but one man that we voted for said No. His No became the Yes policy for the country. We kept quiet; we cowered in a corner; we sighed; we scratched our heads; we aired our grievances like jewels; we mounted no protests; we never went to court; we never had sit-ins; we mourned and moved on. That posture by us did not win us a reprieve from kidnapping or death. We failed to pursue the path to truth. Truth never grows old. Truth does not have an expiry date. Truth is staring us in the face today. Since then we have had some demonstrations against one policy or another, some of them were useful, others were useless. We did not go to the National Assembly to demonstrate for the actualisation of State Police or for them to work on the devolution of powers so that we can have true federalism as demanded by the people in the six geo-political zones. Instead, we went to the National Assembly to demonstrate in favour of a legislator that was disciplined by the Senate which has a right to discipline its members. That is the equivalent of attacking the ringworm while the leprosy festers. That is followership failure. If we had mounted a series of demonstrations years ago asking for State Police, we would have had it and the insecurity would have been largely contained by now. Our failure to do so is, in my opinion, leadership failure. When the Abubakar Tafawa Balewa government wanted to sign the Anglo-Nigerian Defence Pact during the First Republic it was our students from the University of Ibadan who marched into Lagos with placards and stopped the signing of the pact. Today, our students, our labour unions and other civil society organisations restrict themselves purely to kitchen matters that strictly affect their stomachs. They forget that there are bigger issues than kitchen issues that can affect them on a large scale. Security belongs to this sector.

We blame the Federal Government each time there is a security breach and some people are killed or kidnapped. It is right and proper to blame the government but that must not be the end of the matter. We the followers must play our own part. We must provide information about arms amassment, plots by terrorists, bandits and kidnappers, their whereabout, their source of funds, their collaborators, the beneficiaries from ransom, their co-conspirators and where they keep the funds and their ammunition. We like to talk about leadership failure when discussing the problems of Nigeria. It is right to do so but it is we, the followers, that have contributed to leadership failure. It is followership failure that contributes to leadership failure. When our leaders do not do what they ought to do what do we do? We keep quiet or we get some crumbs from their table and go home or we defend the indefensible or we do “siddon look” or we leave the matter to God Almighty by saying “God dey.” These constitute followership failure that emanates from the Office of the Citizen. That is why we never did anything about getting the authorities to establish State Police. Now, we are about having State Police because our governments have been pushed to the wall by the surge of insurgency. Now the well is dry so we now know the worth of water. We didn’t fight for democracy only to gain it and then stand and stare. We must make our voices count. If there is a war of wills between our leaders and we the followers, we must make sure our votes count. That is when followership is meaningful, successful, significant.