Ropo Sekoni
DURING our campaigns, we knew about Boko Haram. What is coming now is surprising. It is not ethnicity or religion, rather it is one evil plan against the country…. We have to be harder on them. One of the responsibilities of government is to provide security. If we don’t secure the country, we will not be able to manage the economy properly—President Muhammadu Buhari
The security in the country had deteriorated and the attendant loss of lives is not acceptable. We need to secure the lives and property of our citizens, as enshrined in our constitution….There is urgent need for paradigm shift and reform of the architecture and structure of our security systems—Ahmed Lawan, Senate President
Overcoming our overwhelming national security challenges now requires that we be willing to accept new approaches and consider novel ideas. Neither the security institutions nor political leaders can afford to hold on too tightly to a status quo whose frustrating limitations are painfully evident, whilst reflectively rejecting innovations that may improve our fortunes if properly implemented—Femi Gbajabiamila, Speaker of the House of Representatives
Just glancing through the quotations above from the President, Senate President, and Speaker of the House of Representatives and recalling the reign of terror and violence against innocent citizens in many parts of the country, no one needs to tell patriotic Nigerians and friends of Nigeria that Nigeria needs help and that the top of the country’s governance—executive and legislative—all seem to have learnt a lesson from the steady rise in criminal acts across the country.
The theme of change in the three quotations above captures in different degrees the cry for help about security in the country. For example, the recognition by the President of some evil plan against the country a cry for help. Similarly, the call for paradigm shift by the Senate President affirms the imperative of change while the demand for innovation by the Speaker acknowledges that current security architecture requires re-invention.
In order to address the problem of insecurity in the country, the legislative branch should consult fully with citizens who are the major stakeholder in this matter, as the group that enters into a social contract with those to whom they delegated power to rule them. An important part of citizen participation in the debate about the future of securing the country from external enemies and citizens and their property from internal enemies of public order is to be truthful with the leaders about the imperative of change. Government leaders need to be reminded that nothing lasts forever and that the system of law enforcement that seems to have collapsed should not be seen as a theology or a religious verity. Like Nigeria itself, the current security system is constructed or manufactured, not sent down to Nigeria from heaven, thus suggesting its perpetual alterability any time reality demands something other than what already exists. This is in character with the human condition universally.
More specifically, citizens in the various constituencies (especially now that virtually every state is a victim of extreme criminality) need to encourage lawmakers to be cautious in their infatuation with ‘community policing’ as presently conceived, as if it is capable of becoming the magic wand against insecurity. Lawmakers have a greater duty to provide guidance through legislation on the design of security architecture, much more than any appointed officer. This looks like a time that calls for originality from the legislative branch, rather than imitation of what the Inspector-General sees as the solution to the country’s security challenges. The IG is not by any stretch of imagination a policymaker; he is the chief implementor of policies made by those to whom citizens had with every election transferred their power to govern themselves. Designing security structure(s) is one of the most important polices that can be made in a modern polity.
Why is it risky for lawmakers to just key into the ‘community policing initiative’ of the central police force? There are many reasons for vigilance on the part of national and subnational legislators. One is that no serious stakeholders would readily give the power to review a structure that has been generally perceived as inadequate to achieve the goal for which a new structure is to be built. If the current police system has been able to deliver the service for which it was created, there would have been no need to reform the architecture of law enforcement 59 years after independence.
From what is available to the public on community policing, i.e. policing of the community (as distinct from community police), it is necessary for legislators to study the initiative by the Inspector-General critically. The initiative may have the approval of President Buhari, but that does not mean the initiative is automatically adequate for the country’s needs. There is no good reason to leave the matter of re-designing a new security architecture to the President and the Inspector-General alone. Doing so may speed things up but such option will be at the expense of thoroughness, which is direly needed at this point in the condition of the country’s security. This is a good time to look at the philosophy of policing the federation, especially in relation to peer countries, apart from adopting uncritically details of the community policing initiative proposed by the executive branch.
The initiative that the Senate President is encouraging his colleagues to adopt and House Speaker has the following features: 1) recruiting for a start 40,000 persons from 774 local governments to train as community police officers (CPO) to be distributed to the 36 states “under the coordination of the Nigeria Police towards evolving a community-focused policing architecture;” 2) deploying 500,000 volunteers including N-Power volunteers as part of Vigilante Protection Corps to police communities; 3) preparing CPOs and volunteers to serve as liaison between the Nigeria Police and the community; 4) giving traditional rulers special role to play in community policing; 5) ensuring that persons on community policing beat are familiar with the cultural terrain of their beat, unlike the tradition of the central police to police communities with individuals without knowledge of the culture of their beat.
Legislators ought to pay attention to Nigeria’s brand of community policing, as distinct from the universal understanding of community-based policing in contrast with community-focused policing. Community-based policing emphasizes that “communities play a key role in defining their own security and safety needs and are involved in planning, implementing, and monitoring community safety and security including planning and monitoring of locally-defined solutions to security problems in communities” under jurisdiction of elected leaders. A community police requires that specific communities—local governments, municipalities, towns, villages, etc are in charge of protection of lives and property in such communities.
But the Nigerian brand of ‘community policing’ leaves specific communities out of the design, management, and operation of the men and women characterized as community police. Philosophy, organization, implementation, monitoring, and quality assurance of security systems are exclusive to the central police. Certainly, lawmakers who represent Nigeria’s diverse communities ought to consult with the electorate formally and informally to know the preferences of those to be protected, especially in view of the apparent noticeable measure of dwindling confidence in the single-level police system whose antecedents have compelled people to seek alternatives to the current condition of security in the country.
While much of the inadequacy of the Nigeria Police Force may not have anything to do with the personality of individuals in the force, its history is important for lawmakers to understand in the course of their efforts to assist the executive branch on creating a security architecture that can meet the demands of a country with borders with four other countries, 36 states (plus the capital territory) and 200 million people.
The history of the Nigeria Police Force started with a colonial constabulary to keep down the natives in the years before independence so that colonial managers can achieve their goal of colonizing the country. Later in the years after the coups of the 1960s, groups in power appropriated exclusive power over policing the country, thus denying subnational governments the right to protect the citizens under them. The size of the population and ease with which military dictators could use soldiers to supplement or complement efforts of the central police were vital to protecting the country from the kind of epidemic of crime in the country in the last few years. Without doubt, indiscriminate use of soldiers in maintenance of internal order has too many side effects that are better avoided.
A security situation that has got leaders and citizens scared as much as it has done requires ‘paradigm shifts’ to borrow the vision of the Senate President or ‘innovation’ to borrow the Speaker’s vocabulary. And lawmakers need to look farther than the existing security architecture inherited from military rule, if there are sincere efforts to think out of the box.
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