14th August, 2012
The call for an amendment of the constitution to provide for state police ignites a raging controversy and a sharp division in the country
Today, many problems are plaguing Nigeria. But one issue the Governor of Plateau State, David Jonah Jang, does not need to think twice before he gives his endorsement is the fiercely debated proposal for state-controlled police. The governor of the state that has been under siege for about a decade now, has never pretended about his preference for state police in direct replacement for the currently centrally controlled cops.
According to Jang, state governors, as chief security officers of the states, should move from this impotent nomenclature to the level of practically possessing power to ensure effective security of their various domains. To Jang, the on-going constitutional amendment by the National Assembly offers the needed opportunity. “The National Assembly should look at the constitution, now that they are reviewing the constitution, to see how state governors, the chief security officers of their states, can be given such powers that they can use to immediately stop certain things that could possibly escalate if not nipped in the bud at the initial stage.”
Jang’s reasons for calling for the creation of state police are hinged on the protracted violence and mindless killings in the state, a situation that has turned the state into a killing field and defiling the conventional security measures. Jang added: “As a government, we have sustained our efforts in tackling the peace and security challenge. Some of these include establishing the Inter-religious Committee for Peace and Harmony, holding stakeholders’ meetings such as this, establishment of Operation Rainbow, and producing white papers on reports of investigations into crises in Jos, though we still have limitations in implementing all aspects of the reports which include those that border on federal agencies.”
Jang, who alleged that certain influential people were thwarting efforts at implementation of reports on crises, stated: “We are unable to implement these reports because we do not have the enforcing agencies under our control; more so that certain big shots in the country have interest and will do anything to protect those indicted by the reports,” he said. Jang’s complaints did not come from a vacuum. When some suspects were arrested in connection with Plateau violence, rather than being prosecuted in Jos, they are sent to Abuja, a request that was granted. And before one could say “Jos”, the suspects were released by the police in Abuja and were back in circulation!
Jang has not been the lone voice clamouring for state police. Governors of southern extraction have all been unanimous in the agitation for the adoption of the proposal by the National Assembly, with a few of them however calling for caution. The position has been met by a counter-position from the northern governors, with the exception of Jang and Gabriel Suswam of Benue, who is yet sitting on the fence. The advocates of state police have argued that the measure would prove to be an effective panacea to curtailing the current security challenges.
For years now, the issue has been one of the thorniest in the country, and understandably so. While grassroots police is regarded as one of the most effective security measures, its susceptibility to abuse has also raised concern. At the moment, the issue has divided the country into northern opposition and southern agitators, with a serious reverberating effect in the Nigerian Governors’ Forum, NGF.
The latest momentum took effect from the meeting of the governors under the umbrella of the NGF. Apparently responding to the current security challenge in the country, the Governors’ Forum had called on the Federal Government to consider the creation of state police and a special intervention fund as the antidote to the spate of insecurity, particularly in the North. In a communiqué presented by the Chairman of the forum, Governor Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers State, the forum stated: “State governments are currently overstretched in funding security and call for a special intervention fund from the Federal Government, especially to the states that are most affected,” even as the forum identified “the increasing need for state police as a strategy for combating the rising insecurity in the country”. The step, it was learnt, was taken in line with international best practices to reduce security to a manageable level that will benefit the citizenry. There were also arguments that the country could not continue with a centralised police structure, which they claimed had proven to be ineffective.
In taking this decision, a total of 34 of the 36 governors reportedly gave their blessing, with the exception of the governors of Benue and Kebbi. While Suswam was not in the country when the matter came up, the Governor of Kebbi, Usman Dakingari, elected to abstain.
But this unanimity and decision came crumbling soon after the meeting of the Northern Governors’ Forum on 26 July. In what appeared a rude departure from the earlier agreement, the northern governors resolved that rather than push for the establishment of state police, the national police should be strengthened for efficient services. A communiqué issued by the forum which had 18 out of the 19 northern governors in attendance and which was presided over by the Niger State Governor, Muazu Babangida Aliyu, its chairman, reads: “The forum is not in support of the creation of state police. It, however, resolved to prevail on the FG to embark on police reforms that will assist the states in the control and management of police affairs on a sound philosophy of modern policing by amending the provision of Section 215 of the Constitution. It quoted the section as saying, “Subject to the provision of this section, the governor or such commissioner of the government of the state as he may authorise in that behalf may give to the commissioner of police of that state such lawful directions with respect to the maintenance and securing of public safety and public order within the state as he may consider necessary, and the commissioner of police shall comply with those directives or cause them to be complied with.”
The backtracking northern governors hinged their decision on the possibility of some of the governors abusing the order. Laced with the claims that most of the participants at the Nigerian Governors’ Forum meeting that adopted the position on state police were “deputy governors who did not fully understand the implications of such a security system”, the Northern Governors’ Forum, it was learnt, would later weigh all options and discover that the nation is not ripe for state police. Fears are being expressed by the northern governors that state police might be used by any government in power to muzzle the opposition and breed tyranny. There are also fears that state police might breed more security problems in the North than addressing the insecurity in the region. “We believe we are not ripe for it yet… We also think that funding is a major issue the governors have been considering. It is not a tea party to fund any police system when you talk of staffing, equipment and providing adequate security.”
The decision of the northern governors came as a rude shock to their southern counterparts, who also saw it as a massive betrayal. They are particularly amazed that the northern governors, whose states are under security siege, would reject what they described as a practical approach to effective security. The call for state police is likened to the Native Authority Police, which was very effective in the Northern Nigeria pre-Independence and in the 60s. “It is surprising that the region is withdrawing from an initiative it had successfully pioneered, a southern governor said.
According to Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan of Delta State, state police is the only way to go. “If we do not consider having the state police, our security challenges will continue to get worse,” he warned.
According Governor Kayode Fayemi of Ekiti State, there is need for the country’s security apparatus to be decentralised for better efficiency. He said: “It is a contradiction in terms to call state governors the chief security officers of their states and yet they don’t have control over the instrumentalities of security control. The NPF has central control from Abuja which is unacceptable. Crimes are essentially better controlled by local communities because it’s easy for the people to know the geography, culture and crime history of the community. It is incongruous to bring somebody from afar to police a strange environment.”
The positions were also corroborated by the Governor of Lagos State, Babatunde Raji Fashola. “But my position on the state police is that it is eminently sensible because if you have a federal university, a federal legislature, a federal judiciary and central police and you have state universities, state House of Assembly, state judiciary, then you don’t have state police, to me it doesn’t make sense. If you open our constitution, you’ll see federal executive, state executive, National Assembly, state House of Assembly, you will see federal and state judiciary and the only thing you will see is the final control, the police. So, how do you enforce laws when you don’t have the law enforcement capacity?” All sorts of arguments, according to him, had been made, including that it would be abused. But, Fashola argued, “Let us assume that it is true that 36 of us (Governors) are irresponsible; is our irrespon-
— Desmond Utomwen/TheNEWS magazine