State Police And The Nigerian Security Crisis

Ahmed Joda argues the need to give serious and urgent thought to our policing system

Distinguished Senator Murray Bruce, in his recent article in THISDAY Newspaper, advocated as many others have done in the past few years the creation of state police. He, like many other Nigerians believe that such action, alone, will solve the serious crisis of policing our country. I am old enough to have experienced what life was like with state or local police in this country. I also am one of those who took keen interest in police and policing. In 1966, after our first Military Coup I worked with a group of civil servants in the Northern Civil Service in an initiative to abolish the Native Authority Police, then under the effective control of the Regional Government. We were driven by our common concern of the massive abuse of the Native Authority Police.

Not many of the present generation of Nigerians, under the age of 60 really experienced life under the Native Authority Police system in Nigeria of the 50s and 60s.

The Native Authority Police formally existed in Northern and Western Regions of the country. In Eastern Nigeria, there were no Native Authority Police. They had what was called Court Messengers, who functioned more or less like the Native Authority police forces in the North and in the West. The management, financing and operational controls were supposed to be the responsibilities of their respective native authorities, under the direct control of the emirs and chiefs.

This arrangement worked well under British watch. With Self Government and then Independence, effective control was exercised by the regional governments, although in times of tension the Nigeria Police took over this control. The first generation pioneer opposition politicians of the 40s and 50s and up to the end of the civilian era in 1966 experienced hell, far worse than we have ever experienced since military and civil dispensations since then.

Many of them, especially at election times were simply rounded up at rallies, walked to the native authority courts, promptly convicted and sent to another native authority institution: the Native Authority Prison for long enough periods to take them out for the election period and render political opposition prostrate. Some were simply abducted and disappeared for the period of the elections. Anyone interested is recommended to visit to the national archives in their various locations to study the newspaper reports of the time to understand what I am talking about.

So in our first memorandum, submitted to the Military Governor of Northern Nigeria, General Hassan Usman Katsina we recommended the merger of the Native Authority Police with the Nigeria Police, which then looked respectable, efficient and respectable. Simultaneously, we recommended the takeover of the Native Authority Prisons by the Federal Prison Service.

At the same time we advocated the transfer of the native courts to the regional judiciary. Most surprisingly all these recommendations were virtually unanimously endorsed even at specially convened meeting of the Northern emirs and chiefs.

Our hopes and expectations were then that we would improve the justice system and ensure the existence of a properly trained and professional police force. We had hoped that transparent recruitment and professional training of the police would be assured. We also hoped that the justice system would be free and fearless. We were to be deeply disappointed. The Nigeria Police, we have today is worse than anything we could have imagined. The justice system does not enjoy the respect and confidence that a good judicial system should enjoy. Neither the Bench nor the Bar in this country deserve the respect of the citizen.

I believe that in trying to resolve the crisis of our policing and ensuring peace and security of our lives and property, we must give the deepest possible thought in bringing about any change in our present arrangement. In 1999, just before he was sworn in as President, I presented three memoranda to the President-elect which addressed three issues which I counselled him to address early in his Presidency. They were one, security and policing, two, petroleum, pricing and distribution and three, electricity. I said if he did not begin to address those issues within his first three months in office he would have lost the battle.

In the case of the Police I said rather bluntly, some would say recklessly, that the best way to start would be disband the Nigeria Police altogether, although I recognised that it would seem irresponsible to wake up one day and find that there is no police for the country. So I suggested other ways for experts to examine the issues for policing in a federation like ours. I also suggested that it must be redesigned to reflect the realities of the Nigerian condition. Adopting any system from any other country would not serve our purpose; just like our adoption of the British and American political system has failed us.

Rather jokingly, the president-elect, after reading the three memoranda, asked what I knew about any of those three subjects. I replied that I knew next to nothing or nothing about all of them, but I have been concerned about them and have given deep thoughts about them all. What he needed to do was to get those with the knowledge and expertise to study the situation with a view of finding the necessary solutions to them. We laughed, but he promised to give them all some thought. Eighteen months after that encounter, he asked me whether I still remember those three memoranda. I said I would never forget them. They still continue to worry me very deeply. He said the situation was very much worse than I had conveyed. The rest is history.

The Nigeria Police has gotten much worse than even at the time I wrote that memorandum of the Force. Perhaps, the creation of state or local government police would help improve the situation. I don’t know!

I suggest that those levels of governments and the various leaderships’ levels of the country, the NASS, the state Houses of Assemblies and society organisations should all engage in a national debate that would propose workable and acceptable systems of policing and security architectures for this country.

One thing we must never forget is that we are an Amalgamation of Federated States within a National Federation. We are a nation made of many nationalities, cultures, religions and traditions; each with different ways of viewing issues. Issues that we must reconcile for our common good.

I am persuaded that we need to decentralise our policing system. How we do so is the question to which we must give full and most urgent attention. We must not rush to create state police forces and think that we have resolved anything.

Policing and security will not come cheap. It will cost a lot of money.

“Time has a wonderful way of showing us what really matters” - Margaret Peters