•Security is one key area Lagos must enjoy a special status as a former federal capital
It is not surprising that the question of security was a major focus at the just concluded retreat organised for members of the Lagos State Executive Council, Permanent Secretaries and some Heads of Parastatals of the mega city’s public service.
This is because of the persistence of a high rate of crimes such as armed robbery in neighbourhoods as well as in heavy traffic, kidnapping, rape and communal gangsterism in several parts of the country’s economic and commercial nerve centre.
Of course, no city in the world is entirely crime-free. However, much more can be done to drastically reduce the incidence of crime in Lagos and other parts of the country. This can, however, only be the function of an effective, efficient, dynamic, flexible and creative security system.
Speaking during the closing session of the retreat, which understandably had in attendance the Lagos State Commissioner of Police, Mr Fatai Owoseni, Lagos State Governor, Mr Akinwunmi Ambode, drew attention to key dimensions of the security conundrum in the state; and his remarks are relevant to the country as a whole.
In his words, “We’re not yet where we want to be. We have only 33,000 policemen in Lagos for a population of over 20 million. Again, we don’t have control over these police officers…We need to see some things change. There has to be some sort of paradigm shift; we want to see our police officers patrol in convoy between 12 midnight and 4am. That’s why on our part, we have gone out of our budget limits, using our resources from the Security Trust Fund to say that, yes, it might not be within our budget, but we would spend money to support the police…”.
First, is the grossly inadequate number of police men relative to the population. But this is only a reflection of a national dilemma. There are only 371, 800 sworn officers in the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) to provide security for a population of 174.2 million people.
The police authorities are working towards addressing this problem through the planned recruitment of 280,000 new officers to increase the size of the force to 650,000. This initiative, however, can only marginally enhance the efficacy of the police across the country.
A second pertinent issue Mr Ambode raised is the control and command structure of the police. The kind of unitary police system currently in place is incapable of effectively meeting the security challenges of a complex federal polity like Nigeria. A situation in which state governments are constitutionally empowered to make laws within their jurisdictions but legally incapacitated to enforce such legislations because police outfits are outside their control, is incompatible with the principles of federalism.
We thus believe that there is ultimately no alternative to the legalization of state police to take into account the cultural and environmental peculiarities of the component states of the federation. But this will be without prejudice to the existence of a well-funded, equipped and motivated federal police force.
A third issue implicit in Mr Ambode’s remarks is the need to redress the current dysfunctional fiscal federal structure, which is heavily skewed in favour of the centre to the disadvantage of the other levels of government. Thus, a state like Lagos has to divert scarce resources to funding the centrally controlled police even when it also has to face the arduous infrastructural, environmental and other challenges arising from its dense and ever increasing population, as well as its role as the country’s economic hub.
We urge Mr. Ambode to intensify the advocacy for special funding for Lagos, given the huge revenues derived from the state, which go into the national coffers.
Besides, Lagos is a former federal capital, and still extant commercial hub, which deserves a special status. While the governor should, therefore, also step up advocacy for Lagos to get its due, it is by nomeans his task alone. It is a Nigerian responsibility. Lagos is Nigeria’s special home, and a mirror and pulse of the federation. It is time to make good President Muhammadu Buhari’s pledge on the hustings, as All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate, to focus on Lagos.