STATE POLICE AND PUBLIC SECURITY
The debate over the necessity for the establishment of state police has been on for quite some time. A latest disclosure by the Vice-President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, at the security forum organised by the National Assembly about the expediency for state police has, however, suddenly given hope to advocates of a decentralised police system that victory is near.
State police is an important component of true federalism and emblem of authority of governance, since sovereignty is divided between the federal authority and federating components. Though the 1999 Constitution provides for a single federal police, this precludes states from taking charge of the protection of lives and property of their people as chief security officer and denied them the emblem of authority. If Nigeria is really a federation, this is a constitutional lacuna that must be addressed through constitution amendment to pave way for state police.
Considering recent level of threat to public security across the country, taking recourse to state police seems a more attractive option. The centralised policing system has not really been effective and it is only logical that we consider other plausible options.
Aside the well accepted philosophy that that policing is essentially a local matter, every crime is local in nature. Hence, it is only rational to localise the police force. No matter its form, crime detection needs a local knowledge that state police can better provide.
Similarly, police officers who serve in their indigenous communities are stakeholders with vested interests in such places. Considering the reality that they will always be part of their respective communities, even after retirement, it is doubtful if they will perpetrate anti- social activities in such communities. A recent Human Right Watch survey reveals that most of the accidental and other extra judicial killings that have taken place in the country were perpetrated by officers posted outside their states of origin.
Also, knowledge of the local environment is needed for effective policing. It is only logical that to fight crime in the same locality, you need law enforcement personnel familiar with the terrain. Using police officers from Jalingo, for instance, to burst a crime in Onitsha could at best be counter- productive. The local criminals with good knowledge of the area will always outwit such ‘foreign’ police officers.
Intelligence gathering is an indispensable necessity in crime fighting. But this seems to be currently lacking in the system. It is difficult to access high-quality intelligence, unless you know the people very well, and they in turn trust you. The present arrangement certainly negates credible intelligence gathering. We live in a society where people treat perceived strangers with lots of reservation.
This, no doubt, is quite understandable. It is difficult to trust somebody whose language, culture and tradition you are unfamiliar with. The truth is that people will always be afraid of passing on information to those they don’t trust, and this is for obvious reasons.
Perhaps more importantly, it is important that a state governor who ought to be the chief security officer of his state has the control of the police command in same state. The current trend where the police commissioner in a state takes orders from Abuja concerning security issues in a state is not too tidy.
Ironically, almost all state governments in the country invest significantly in the diverse security agencies in their respective states. In Lagos, for example, the state government has in the last 17 years invested billions of naira on public security. In fact, the first security trust fund to be established, by any government, in the country was initiated by the Lagos State Government. Many other states have since followed the Lagos model, in the process committing several billions of naira into the project.
Now, will it not amount to double standard that a governor bears such a huge financial burden, which in the first place should be that of the federal government, only for the system to turn around and deny him un-hindered control of same institution at crucial moments?
To properly address current security question in the country, we need to tackle the touchy issue of state police. No matter how much a state government spends on security, the reality is that it has no direct control over any of the national security organs. The current centralised police structure in the country will continue to limit the capacity of states to effectively and clinically address security issues.
It has been argued severally that state police is nothing but a recipe for anarchy as it could lead to abuse of power. This argument is neither here nor there. The reality, however, is that the present centralised policing arrangement has, over the years, equally been subjected to limitless abuse in diverse ways. At some period in our national history, we have witnessed instances of distasteful use of police by the appropriate authorities to perpetrate gross injustice.
The truth of the matter is that in-spite of all the arguments against state police, the reality is that Nigeria is too large and complex to be policed centrally. If we are really serious about overcoming current security challenges in the polity, the time to embrace the option of state police is now. Ogunbiyi is of the Ministry of Information & Strategy, Alausa, Lagos