30th September, 2011
 Monday Agbonika is the Divisional Police Officer, DPO, at Isokoko Police Division, Lagos State, southwest Nigeria. Residents say he has turned around the once notorious Police Division into a friendly place. The Wall Street Journal, the influential American publication, describes him as an exceptional Nigerian cop who does not demand or accept bribe. P.M.NEWS reporters, Simon Ateba and Kashimana Beba, had a chance meeting with him at a public function recently. He spoke on how he runs his division
Yours was once a notorious Police Division and residents say you have turned it around. How were you able to achieve that?
Well, I just try to ensure that I have a plan on the ground, study the area and find out what the concerns of the community are and I follow the plan. I have attended training on community policing by the DFID. It’s a programme organised by the British Government. The emphasis is on service delivery and on solving community problems with members of the community themselves. The conventional policeman determines crime rate in the community by checking the statistics of robbery cases, stealing, snatching of cars and so on, but with my community policing training we find out from members of the community what they perceive as their problems. And so, most times, we try to compare what our statistics say and what the people are saying. We realise that both the statistics and what the people are saying are often two different things.
Since you took over, what has changed in the division, especially in terms of crime rate?
In those days, we had higher rate of crimes here, mainly snatching of cars, the expressway by the division leads to Ogun State and Benin Republic. And that is where car snatchers used to take their loot. I have identified all the areas that they are likely to be used and I have deployed policemen in those places. Technically, what I have done is visibility policing. I make sure that policemen are seen everywhere so the crime rate is reduced. The visibility policing is not only to curb crime but also to reduce fear and for the people to have assurance because if there is no crime, but the people are still afraid, then you have not done enough. So, I get information from the community, I work with them, they all have my phone numbers and can call me at any time of the day and we tackle problems together, all these have really helped.
We learnt that you do not tolerate indiscipline among your staff. How are you able to instill discipline in them? How do you get them to obey instructions?
There are laid down procedures in the Police Force and I ensure that these laws are obeyed and if an officer is found wanting, he is prosecuted. And because they know that disciplinary actions will be taken against them if they commit an offence, they try to avoid it. Another aspect that has helped is the fact that I am always on the ground to monitor them and to detect any offence so they are always very careful. If they know their offence will not be detected, they will do it.
What kind of feedback do you get from the community?
A lot of times when members of the public come face to face with our men, they don’t say bad things about us because I have some concrete things on the ground. For example, the building that we are occupying, when I came in about four years, we had one ramshackle building that served as the police station. We had a lot of challenges; we didn’t have enough space, there was no toilet and this project had already commenced since 1999. And so we went round and involved a lot of stakeholders, people within our community and they started contributing N20, 000 or N30,000 and that is how we were able to complete the project. If people are not appreciative of the way we serve, I don’t think they will go out of their way to get the project completed. And as a matter of fact, I felt so happy because people in the media, for instance, had said that people don’t like the police but if the people here can come and have the project completed within the short period of time, then they deserve all the services we can render to them.
Tell us about your background, where did you work before you were transferred to Isokoko?
I have been pretty everywhere. I started in 1992, my first posting was in Kano command where I worked for the first year, did my beat in division. I worked with state CID, eventually I was the Public Relations officer for Kano State Command and from there, I left for Lagos first headquarters annex as PA to AIG, A department and from there, I went to Plateau State as the OC Anti-Robbery for the state. From Plateau State, I came back to Lagos Zone 2 where I worked as OCD Anti-Fraud in the zonal CID, then someone detected that I had worked as PRO before and I was made the Zonal PRO. I was zonal PRO until 2005 when I came to Lagos State Command proper as the OC police post in Jankara Lagos Island. From there, I went on a mission to Liberia with the United Nations,UN, for one year and returned to Nigeria. I have been moving.
Do you think the experience and exposure have contributed to how you man the affairs of your division?
Yes, because the exposure brings about different things. The training organised by the UN gave me the opportunity to have special knowledge, especially from communities that were just coming out of a crisis in Liberia. And the community policing project also trained us. I also made a lot of friends with policemen from other countries, so when I have challenge, we exchange mails through the internet and they tell me how they have handled such cases and vice versa. I have been exposed to how to handle difficult issues, especially policemen that put officers into trouble. I believe that it is also a personal thing and when I was little, I hated to see people being cheated, so as a child, I took up issues of people being bullied. I see this as an opportunity to prevent people from cheating others. Then with the community policing training, I get much done.
And by involving the community members like the vigilantes, I put policemen on the road at key areas and the robbers know that policemen are everywhere and they keep off the area. I just ensure that my men are there and more importantly, I ensure that the overall plan is carried out. When they follow the plan, everything goes as planned.
What is your academic background?
I read psychology in the University of Jos, and I also have a Masters Degree in organisation psychology in the same university.
There are security challenges in the country now, how do you at your level tackle such challenges?
At my level, the most important thing is enlightenment. I let the people be more aware and alert on security issues. The issue of Boko Haram is very challenging to the police because before now, we had mainly cases of robbery attacks, but now, Boko Haram people are ready to kill and be killed in the process. I believe Nigerian leaders and the Police Force, even though I am not talking on their behalf, are doing everything to curb the new threat. At our level, we enlighten our staff about security measures, we take records of visitors to the division and there are other measures to ensure tight security in this station.
Sir, we were told that since you were transferred to the division, some police officers, who could not work under strict conditions have resigned while others asked to be transferred. How true is that?
It’s normal policing approach, some policemen in Lagos think that they can get bribe from suspects but with community policing, we let them know that they have to work with the community and if there is need for any assistance, members of the community will support and together you will address it. It is also a fact that we operate a transparent system here, a system where an IPO carries his file and everything in the file is known to him alone is no more permitted, now we operate as a team, everybody knows what the other person is doing, so if anything comes, everybody knows. We do not give any returns to our CP and so, we are not expecting returns from any of our men. Now, anyone who takes bribe is on his own, any policeman caught collecting bribe from members of the public will lose his job automatically.
How many people have lost their jobs since you took over?
I can’t give you the percentage now but it’s an ongoing thing. It’s just that now, it’s more difficult for the boys who indulge in bribe because bail is free and nobody pays for anything, so whoever cannot cope will have to leave. That’s just as simple as that.
Do you have enough men on the ground?
No, we don’t have enough men yet, going by the UN standard we are supposed to have 400 men to one police officer, but we don’t have that, but there’s a way we get around that. With community policing, we deal with the community and like I said before, in my case we asked the community to give us men who will act as vigilantes but we train them and I also send my men out to work with them. In my station I send the men out while the women stay in the office. You see, I do look at my strength and weakness. Then another thing is the needs of the people in the community, I deploy men based on the needs of the people,so I manage the little resources that I have very well. Another way I manage my obvious shortage of manpower is by involving the community; I zone my area into five micro beats. So if I need 10 men in each micro beat, and sometimes I don’t have enough men to cover all the beats, I partner with the community and I tell them that I need men to be patrolling from 6pm to 6am because some residential areas are not motorable and people can attack them at night and the patrol vehicle will not be able to get there to respond to their call, so we work with trained vigilante men. It’s working.
What should an ideal policeman be like?
An ideal policeman should have genuine interest in serving the people. He should be a policeman that will accept the shortcomings that we have in the system such as lack of logistics. He must know that he is a servant and not a lord over the community.
How is your relationship with the police hierarchy?
I have a very cordial relationship with everybody. They are very encouraging and the CP is very motivating. I believe that they approve of the way I have been doing my job here.