State police is an idea whose time has come and it’s crystal clear why: Nigeria is too vast for a central constabulary.
Here though, the irony is rich! “Constabulary” could mean “an armed police force organized as a military unit”. But the winning Nigerian model should mirror “the collective constables of a district” — another dictionary meaning.
Since post-1st Republic (circa 1966/67), Nigeria has more or less adopted the bristling central force, supposed to menace felons, with its awesome arms.
But many times, it never boasts such arms; and is itself, progressively menaced — by non-state actors and sundry, formidably armed felons.
True: politicians and local potentates had thoroughly abused the pristine constabulary, the well-feared “Olopa”, though it wielded nothing beyond the good, old baton! Still, contrast the citizen awe of that “Olopa” of old, with the quiet scorn that often meets his rifle-wielding offspring today!
The pseudo-messianic military pushed out the old Olopa and Dogari — for good reasons — just as they did the fumbling politicians that thoroughly abused them; replacing both with a uniform Nigeria Police.
Indeed, the local police — either in the southern regions of East and West — or the no less notorious Native Administration police in the North — the Dogari (royal guards) — had become an intolerable instrument of citizen coercion, oppression and suppression.
Still, over the years, the over-stretched central police has frayed at the seams, and left gaping holes in rural areas and extensive forests: voids that have turned shimmering oases of violent crimes and sundry insecurity.
Now, from about everywhere comes a near-uniform cry: the stone the army refused might well become the security cornerstone of future Nigeria: state police!
An idea whose time has come?
Bala Mohammed, Bauchi governor and chair, PDP Governors’ Forum: “There is need for the decentralization of the security apparatus so that we can deliver good governance by having state police. We will,” he pledged, “work in tandem with the established best global practices rather than being forced to be using vigilantes …”
That’s a not-so-opaque reference to the ad-hoc pressing of northern youths into security duties. But formalizing state police would have admitted that systemic gap and applied a systemic solution, under the Constitution of the Federal Republic.
Gen. Aliyu Gusau, a former national security adviser (NSA), at the sign-off of the Zamfara Community Protection Guard — yet another ‘state police’ all but in name: “Nigeria is a difficult country to secure. Therefore, expecting a single Police Force to patrol and control such a large and complex nation effectively is a very tall order.”
But news flash! Gen. Gasau was one of the fundamental pillars, both as avowed military centralist and conservative politician, that balked for much too long against state police. Indeed, this is pleasant epiphany, forced by local dire straits!
Dikko Radda, Katsina governor, on the Katsina Community Watch Corps: “The reason we chose these people is because they were directly affected: their parents were killed, their sisters were raped, so they have more courage to do this job.”
In brass tacks, the recruits are victims of violence, in far-flung rural Nigeria, that the central Police can’t reach. Yet, they too are citizens entitled to state protection from bandits. So, the Community Watch Corps is desperate Katsina rural police, without being so-called.
The flip side, of course, is that policing here could spiral into naked vengeance — hunting down bandits that hitherto had killed, raped and hewn kith-and-kin — thus risking an endless cycle of violence.
But again for these bitter citizens, tempering vengeance with professional police training, could be the ultimate antidote — both for day-to-day survival and healing.
Besides, having a well-trained, well-drilled and well-armed resident cadre, made up of passionate natives, in frontline rural communities ravaged by bandits, is a powerful step towards dominating the security space; and plugging the present voids.
Imagine all of that as routine parts of an integrated federal police network, woven as state and central police corps, each working tick-tock to fend off crime — that tight structure erected on doughty checks and balances?
Imagine the intelligence trove that should be at the disposal of such a police set-up? Imagine the prospect of crime prevention which active intel-harvesting offers?
Imagine the vastly increased numbers on police duties — of hitherto incensed and alienated youths, now making a career of earning a living to protect own folks?
Imagine. Just imagine!
The beauty of the moment is that the call for state police is coming from nearly all parts of the federation — not from some hectoring South West Solon, thundering down other folks, too slow-witted to catch the sheer paradise-on-earth of “restructuring”!
For the North, it’s ugly reality trumping romantic dogma, nevertheless erected, many times, on genuine fears that a restructured Nigeria would knock off the North.
For the crowing South — particularly the always bristling South West — it’s a gangling failure of messaging, built more on anger and contempt, hardly on humble persuasion.
It’s nice that regional pathologies are vanishing in the face of the ugly nitty-gritty. State police is threat to none. It is rather a win-win to all.
Yet, weak dissenting voices abide. Hope Uzodinma, the Imo governor, seems less hopeful or upbeat about state police, claiming states don’t have the cash to fund it.
As chair of the South East Progressive Governors, he seemed to speak not only for his native Imo, but for the entire South East, where frankly the Ebube Agu, the South East’s regional security answer to the South West’s Amotekun, appears floundering rather than thriving.
Still, that Seyi Makinde, the Oyo governor, has faced down the Uzodinma claim shows its relative unpopularity. But it could also hallmark the relatively high unanimity in the South West for the federalization of the Police.
Whichever way between Uzodinma and Makinde, something must fill the present security vacuum, if the present insecurity must improve.
That brings the discourse to two critical concepts: federalization and liberalization.
To federalize the Nigeria Police is all but settled: if not by fanciful dogma, then by the terrible praxis. Having a unitary police secure a federation is a catastrophe — and it’s ugly in our eyes!
But then, liberalization takes care of those states who, despite the present peril, still cannot afford it. Liberalizing the police structure would ensure those states maximize the use of the present central police.
State police, for the umpteenth time, is an idea whose time has come. President Bola Tinubu should cut a deal with the National Assembly for it to happen — as early as yesterday, as they say in that street lingo.
Time is running out. Delay is dangerous.
