POLICING in Nigeria just got more curious with the Kaduna State Police Command inviting the senator representing Kaduna Central, Shehu Sani, to respond to allegations of criminal conspiracy. The senator, who is locked in battle with the tempestuous Governor of Kaduna State, Nasir el-Rufai, has suggested that the invitation is a ploy to frame him in the same manner the senator representing Kogi West, Dino Melaye, was framed for sponsoring and arming thugs. This column observed last week that the Kogi case contained in it more than met the eyes. Barely two weeks later, Sen Sani is also embroiled in a curious police case. Both senators are thought to be stridently indifferent to the camp, and re-election ambition, of President Muhammadu Buhari.
The Kaduna police commissioner, Austin Iwar, was quoted as saying that a case of murder transferred to the police by the military in Kaduna allegedly mentioned the name of the senator. The suspect in the case, one Isa Garba, was said to have mentioned the name of the senator in the murder of one Lawal Maiduna. Said Mr Iwar in the letter to Sen Sani: “This is in connection with a case of criminal conspiracy and culpable homicide transferred to this office by 1 Division, Nigerian Army, Kaduna, alongside with exhibit audio CD, in which your name was mentioned by the principal suspect.” The police declined to give more clarification, insisting that it was impolitic to do so at the moment.
The police are of course free to investigate any case reported or transferred to them. But Mr Iwar is wrong to suggest that the police were not required at the point of invitation to elucidate on the case, especially given the suspicions and tensions souring relationships and enveloping politics in the state. It is always necessary, even at the preliminary stage, to dispel any notion of the police being used to facilitate harassment of anyone opposed to both the governor and the president. The police need to jealously and scrupulously guide their image and credibility. Already, the senator himself has considered the invitation as harassment, and likened it to the ongoing mystifying case the police are incautiously building against Sen Melaye in Kogi for being an outspoken critic of both the governor, Yahaya Bello, and President Buhari.
Sen Sani and the senator representing Kaduna North, Suleiman Hunkuyi, are known to be adamantly opposed to the governor in particular. Their opposition is of such severity that the governor had felt both disgruntled and impelled to return fire for fire against the intransigent senators. Pursuant to this, a few weeks ago, the governor had controversially ordered the demolition of the temporary campaign headquarters of the All Progressives Congress (APC) faction embraced by the two senators. The governor alleged that the said building in Kaduna was converted to purposes other than that for which it was registered, and that in any case the building had defaulted in payment of land use charge.
In the case of Sen Melaye, he is perhaps the most articulate and trenchant opponent the young but inexperienced and unwise Kogi State governor contends with today. For his trouble, a recall process has been instigated against him; and to pile on the agony, a criminal charge has also been brought against him. He is in fact expected to appear in court soon in order to be charged. Sen Melaye has dismissed the allegations against him as trumped-up. He insists that one or two of those whose testimonies were relied upon to charge him in court were precisely those who masterminded an attack against his person sometime ago.
The police have often given the impression that they can suffer no consequences for sloppy or misdirected investigations. This is why thousands of suspects are needlessly locked up in police cells or remanded in prison custody for flimsy and legally unsustainable reasons. Apart from the public confidence in the police ebbing, especially in recent years, it is important for the police to be made aware of the fact that they must answer for shoddy investigations or for allowing themselves to be used for political reasons. The Nigerian constitution gives enormous powers to the police. But those powers have often been used irresponsibly or for the wrong reasons. The country eagerly awaits a fundamental restructuring of the Police Force to make it answerable for its actions and to ensure that its enormous powers are used responsibly.
Contrary to what they think, the police have a duty to disabuse the minds of the public that the two senators are not being needlessly and irresponsibly persecuted at the behest of certain political interests. They owe the public explanations, and those explanations must be given promptly and copiously to assuage any lingering suspicion. The police must be made aware that, so far, Nigerians are dissatisfied with their approach to policing, the inefficiency with which their men are deployed in the face of increasingly fierce and sophisticated criminality in many states, and their often enthusiastic tendency to lend themselves to be used by either powerful interests, particularly the government, or the highest bidder who contemptuously views the police as a mercenary organisation rather than an ethical law enforcement agency.
