Just this week, the Senate passed the bill on state police in Nigeria, thereby concurring on the matter with the House of Representatives, which passed the same bill two weeks ago. The House had passed it with an overwhelming majority of 289 votes of its 360 members. With this development, the stage is now set for the necessary follow-up task, which is that of amending the nation’s constitution to operationalise state policing across the country.
Seen in context, the passage of the bill on state police marks a major turning point in the country’s bid to re-jig its security architecture in the face of daily evolving security challenges, especially with respect to the homeland aspect, where the country’s police establishment is notionally responsible for. With the daily escalating incidence and intensity of criminality and other security challenges, which have cost the country significant losses in lives and property, the efforts of the police have been reinforced with the deployment of the military, who have been engaged in asymmetrical warfare with enemies of the country.
Just as well, a long-running debate has been raging over the propriety or otherwise of the current state of the country’s police establishment. The bone of contention had been which of the two models to adopt.
In one vein is the current situation in which the country runs a centralised police establishment under an Inspector General of Police (IGP), who is answerable to the president and delegates authority and assignments to zonal and state operational commands, which are also primarily answerable to him. With state governors as the statutory chief security officers in their respective states, an inherent conflict of interest and authority looms when the governor and the police chiefs do not see eye to eye. Who then calls the shot between the governor and the IGP could easily be an issue.
Seen in historical context, it is for the foregoing reason that the matter of state police had long been drawn in public debates and policy considerations across the country, and spawned the call for autonomy of the federating states to have police formations that are under the direct control of the respective state governors. Meanwhile, even the second model of state policing also offers its challenges, which include the possibility of abuse by the governors and inadequacy of capacity to operationalise their commands effectively with funding and other appurtenances of offices.
However, now that the Senate and House of Representatives have passed the state police bill, expectations are high over a remediation of the deepening state of insecurity. But that may not be overnight as it is just the beginning of a long journey, just as it is not the only area that needs reforms is the country’s security architecture. While the state police dispensation demands speed in actualisation, so do other areas of deficiency in the security architecture also demand comparable attention.
That is where the country needs to look at the bigger picture of the imperative of remediating the plague of insecurity beyond the state police dispensation, no matter the hype that had been built around it as the talisman for the task. In the circumstances, one of the questions on the lips of many Nigerians is how far it will contribute to caging the menace of insecurity under the present administration. For example, whereas an idea may look good on the surface, its utility will depend on several factors beyond its face value.
The bigger picture in this instance remains whether Nigeria, which is for all intents and purposes at war, has a ‘win-the-war’ disposition. Is the country disposed to the expectation of an end to the ongoing reign of insecurity and restoration of normalcy in the country? This is the end to which reforms in the nation’s security architecture, like the state police dispensation should be directed. Otherwise, it may end up like another mismanaged enterprise that will simply deepen the country’s dilemma of serial bad governance.
A primary consideration justifying the state police dispensation derives from the primacy of the police establishment as the foundation of the nation’s security architecture. With state police, there is the expectation of a closer bonding between the state law enforcement apparatus with non-state actors in the local communities. Whereas Nigeria’s rural dwellers shall have more presence of governance, the question of neglect by state-level authorities cannot be ruled out. Lessons from experiences of government officials posted to rural areas, like doctors and others point to the possibility of neglect with consequential poor performance of the designated officers.
With state police, the need for effective management of the dispensation, especially in the rural areas that are often the epicenters of insurgency, needs to be taken seriously.
It is significant that in passing the state police bill, the two chambers of the National Assembly have assured the country of having instituted necessary safeguards in it, so the state assemblies should appreciate the urgency of the issue and do the needful for an early reform of the country’s police establishment.
News Credit to our media partner DailyTrust Home .
