The Inspector General of Police (IGP), Mr. Olukayode Egbetokun, a very smart, mobile and cerebral cop to lead the force in over a decade, stirred the hornet nest last Monday when he said, in Abuja, that State Police, as being demanded by Nigerians, is a recipe for anarchy. Specifically, he said that Nigeria is not ripe for a state police structure. His reason bother on same old excuses that had been parroted over time to stagnate the progress that Nigeria, as a federation, ought to have made in advancing its governance and security structures in the effort to push its rapid development forward.
The reasons Egbetokun advanced for his rejection of the call to restructure the policing system and the introduction of state police structures include that state police would be mismanaged or misused by governors to create a reign of the superman that would undermine human rights and security. He also argued that State Police will lead to the creation of “multiple command structures in the states”. He also said state governments lack the financial muscles to fund state police structures. To this, he only called for increased budgetary allocation to Nigeria Police with the need for the injection of more persons into the force annually.
Egbetokun spoke as the IGP. Therefore, it is taken that his position represents the thinking of the leadership of the force. It is also instructive that he spoke at a dialogue organised by the office of the Speaker of the House of Representatives in the effort to alter the Nigerian constitution and make it work for the people and the country. This suggests that he spoke at a very important platform. However, I disagree with him. In doing this, I am guided by the eternal words of late Nelson Mandela when he said “it always seems impossible until it is done”.
In the first instance, the IGP’s reasons, to my mind, relate more to fear and protectionism. His reasons are at best untested, unexperimented and untried and as such cannot be held as scientific truth to dismiss a reality that would possibly cure the problem of inadequate personnel and funding as he identified. His argument that state police would create “multiple command structures in the states” seems to me to be an attempt to preserve the powers of the office of the IGP and retain a centralised command structure rather than allow a situation that would unbundle the power/command structure and make the office lose some of its powers. Therefore, this bothers more on the fear of the loss of command than on the effectiveness of policing the country.
Secondly, the argument that governors would misuse state police is, in effect, an admission that the Nigerian constitution, and laws, lacks the capacity to protect citizens against abuse of power by governors. If this be the case, then, the need for an amendment to protect citizens’ rights is immediate. It is also an admission that the police, even as currently structured, is meant to take, and enforce, orders from the executive not with regards to the respect of the rule of law but in response to the impulses and fantasies of the executive. This further suggests that Nigeria’s laws permit governors to act arbitrarily in the abuse of their powers. This perspective betrays the democratic tenet of responsibility to the law or rule of law, a reality which has held elected leaders, in several jurisdictions, to answer to crimes that bother on the abuse of power while they held sway. Strict enforcement of the law which protects the people and their rights from abuse by political leaders is the perfect cure for this fear. After all, after the war, there was Nuremberg! And this would necessitate the unbundling of S.309 of the constitution to disrobe governors of immunity from the abuse of their powers. Unless the IGP is telling us that the democratic tenet of the rule of law is unknown to Nigeria and as such not applicable.
The IGP also argued that states do not have the financial muscle to fund state police structures. I want to believe that the IGP is aware that the problem Nigeria has had with its development is not the lack of financial resources but the unwillingness to stem the tide of the stealing of these resources by elected leaders. For instance, an ex-governor in a North Central state is now accused of stealing about N80 billion. The population of his state is put at about 4.6m (2022 estimate). It is doubtful that he would have spent N10b annually in funding a police for his state, if head one. So, imagine that the stolen N80b was channeled toward funding state police with less than 15,000 personnel given the United Nations Police-Population ratio of one policeman to 450 citizens. So, doing a mental calculation of how much elected leaders in Nigeria have been accused, or, found guilty, of stealing would conclude that the problem isn’t exactly that of lack of financial resources. Also, a review of how much Nigerian states waste in ill-conceived and irrelevant projects, many of which are abandoned or discontinued, indicates that funds to administer state police structures are not really scarce.
In stating his position, however, the IGP overlooked the possibility that unbundling the Police would make for increased responsiveness, improved protection against an overbearing federal police, accountability to the state authority, improved efficiency, and possibly better resource allocation. This is because a state police structure can be more in tune with the unique challenges and issues faced by specific communities, which would enable the development and deployment of strategies accordingly. This would also enable the state police structure to build trust between law enforcement and citizens, which is necessary for more effective and better outcomes. This is an aspect of policing that is missing with federal police structure.
When you have state police also, the state is most likely to create the efficiency needed to respond to situations as they develop. The command structure is most likely to be streamlined removing the bureaucratic bottlenecks that make effective response to situations difficult in a federal structure. For instance, Nigerians are daily told that state governors are Chief Security Officers of their various states on paper as they lack powers to deploy the federal police operating in their states to attend immediately to situations. This is most likely to be eliminated with a state police system. Therefore, state police can be more efficient, as they are responsible for a smaller jurisdiction and can be swifter in their operations. This can help to improve the speed and quality of investigations, leading to better outcomes for victims and the community as a whole.
Further, when the police is directly accountable to the community it serves, it is more likely to act in the best interest of citizens and residents of that community as well as ensure that its actions are transparent and fair. Situations like this will always lead to better relationships between the police and the community. This also has the capacity to reduce incidents of abuse of power. Added to this is the fact that we are probably are not looking at the possibility that by having their own police force, states can exercise more control over their own affairs and protect the rights of their citizens more effectively. I have no doubt that this will cause a drop in the crime rate in the states because managing smaller business units have, over time, proven to be more effective and result-oriented than managing very expansive business units. A federal police is like a very large business unit with layers of control and power cells which keeps the leadership very far insulated from the people while the organisation remains largely ineffective. On the other hand, a state police will act as a small business unit which is closer to the customers and delivers more to their expectations with better competition among the states to deliver the best police.
I pray I am wrong in this analysis and I would like to be told so.