As discussions on the establishment of state police in Nigeria gain momentum, experts from the Nigeria Society for Criminology (NSC) have called for comprehensive national legislation to prevent abuse and curb local oppression.
Speaking during a webinar titled “Perspectives on State Policing” on Thursday, Professors Etannibi Alemika, Smart Otu, and Lanre Ikuteyijo emphasized the need for a robust legal framework to manage the complexities of a decentralized police system.
The experts highlighted potential benefits of state policing, including improved security, job creation, promotion of true federalism, and enhanced local crime control.
However, they also pointed out significant challenges such as antagonistic competition among forces, inconsistent operational standards, partisanship, poor coordination of information sharing, and crime displacement across jurisdictions.
They stressed the importance of relying on expert input and research-based evidence to draft a framework that addresses these concerns.
Professors Alemika and Ikuteyijo further warned that without addressing the structural and operational issues plaguing the Nigerian Police, a rushed implementation of state policing could replicate existing inefficiencies and challenges.
They advocated for a thorough, well-researched approach to ensure the success of the initiative.
Specifically, Professor Alemika noted that, “Police is not a transformative agency because its role is to reproduce the prevailing social order and repress dissent against it”.
He noted that solutions to crimes and criminality “are to be sought within the social, political and economic structures that cause and reproduce them for the benefit of the economic, political and social power-holders in Nigeria
“Police and policing reforms will not guarantee security and development without good governance, efficient public service delivery of essential services such as education, health care, shelter, water, sanitation, communication and transportation by the government as well as opportunity for meaningful employment and income, social recognition, equality and justice, social protection from deprivations.
“Police performance and relations with citizens reflect the extent of good governance and the performance of government, of which the police force is an agent. The quest for good policing must be an intrinsic element of struggle for the entrenchment of a social democratic political system and a developed economy managed and advanced for the welfare, security, and dignity of citizens.
“Without scrupulous interrogation or scrutiny of the constitutional provisions, bills and laws to establish state police and the adequate constitutional limitations to prevent egregious abuse of police powers, the clamour for state police by the power-holders may pass for them to realise their latent aim of capturing the state and turning the country into a police state.”
In his opening remarks, president Nigeria Society of Criminology, Professor Oludayo Tade stated that one of the mandates of the society is to guide government in the formulation of appropriate policies to check criminality and criminal behavior and improve Nigeria’s criminal justice system.
He noted that the Nigeria Society for Criminology is ready to partner with relevant government organ/agencies to review and recommend a suitable model that will improve the security situation in the country.