Mr. Innocent Chukwuma is the executive director, CLEEN Foundation, a non-governmental organization promoting public safety and accessible justice through research, advocacy and publications. He spoke to CHIJIOKE IREMEKA on a range of issues bordering on police affairs and reforms.WAS there a need for a Police Affairs Ministry'In principles, I would like to start with the constitutional provision of the country, which envisaged the establishment of such a ministry. If you look at Section 215(3) of the 1999 Constitution of Nigeria, it gives room for such establishment.The Constitution empowers the President or a Minister of the government to lawfully give directives to Inspector General (IG) of Police in respect to maintenance of security, laws and order in the country.So, owing to this principle and realising that office of the President is a busy one, whereby the occupant is not chanced to pay close attention to an important institution such as the security, then, the creation of the ministry and appointment of a minister to assist the President on security matters becomes necessary.Having said this, the question remains, is the ministry really playing that important role in overseeing the Police in their day-to-day functions in real sense' I guess this is where people have issues with the ministry and suggested alternative way out.At first, the ministry has two essential departments relating to the function of the Police. One of the departments has the Police Council saddled with the responsibility of organising the Police. The recent one created is the Police Inspectorate department.Apart from these professional departments, which have not done much, the only role the ministry has achieved vigorously is sitting on police budget and spending it on behalf of the Police. This led to the question, can government set up a full-fledged ministry to collect and spend money meant for an institution'It's in this context that a recent committee recommended scrapping of the ministry but I disagree with such a recommendation. What should be done is to merge the PSC and the ministry to create enough function for the ministry because the PSC itself is idle. The PSC waits for the Police to conclude their promotion, recruitment, disciplinary process and handover to it to rubberstamp.Also, when you merge the two, the three functional roles of the PSC, which include disciplinary, promotion and appointment and recruitment of the police, could form three departments. When you add it to what the ministry has, then, you have a full-fledged ministry.Also, the name should be changed to either the Ministry of Policing Affairs or Ministry of Public Security, to capture other state actors in policing and not the Police alone. This would rather look at other state actors playing important roles in the area of safety, security and crime prevention in the society, which we refer to as informal policing or vigilante. This will help to restructure and complement policing work in Nigeria.What do you think is the problem with the PSC, which is supposed to be the regulator of police affair but has not lived up to this expectation'On papers, the PSC is one of the most powerful civilian oversight bodies on Police in the history of the world, because it combines two to three functions. It recruits the police, promotes them when deserved and also disciplines them when they fall short of expectations.The idea of this establishment is that, when the PSC plays these roles effectively, policing in Nigeria would record a better result. This is a most positive regulator in the sense that other bodies dwell on investigation on the police alone without looking at any reasons to promote those that deserve it. It is the only body that looks at the totality of police performance.But outside paper and theoretical aspect of the functions, the PSC is a body that, by its making, restrains itself from playing its functions. In the past 11 years after its establishment, the PSC has not considered it necessary to investigate the public complaints against police misconducts.In other words, today, if a petition is written against any police officer for a case of misconduct, torture, extra judicial killing or other offences, all the PSC will do is to minute on the petition and send back to the Police. Most times, the Police don't get any feedback.In a few cases when they get feedback, they will only exonerate the embattled officer and the crime continues. Hence, we have a body that, by its own design, prevents itself from performing its functions.Besides, the government considers the functions of the PSC as unimportant, with reference to its budget priority, compared to the functions of the Police itself. Hence, when there is a need to cut the budget, the first to tamper with is that of the PSC; which means that the whole function of controlling and checking the conduct of police is considered a lower priority by the government.The body has not been adequately structured to perform these functions. If you look at its headquarters at the Federal Secretariat Phase One in Abuja, you will find them scattered into three buildings. One is located at the building housing the Secretary to the Federal Government (SFG) and the other at adjoining building. So, coordinating the activities of this body has been difficult, although I'm aware that they have been given money lately to build their own headquarters.Going by these and self-defeating tendencies of the PSC, especially by the current chair, who has refused to play the major role of the civilian oversight bodies of policing in the world, which investigates the police misconduct, the PSC has been rendered almost useless. When you put these together, it makes the body to exist on paper, whereas in practice, it is a rubberstamp of whatever the Police have done.REGIME after regime, there had been proposals for police reforms but it got worse thereafter; what is the real problem with reforming the force'One thing we need to understand is that the successive governments have mastered the arts of deception and deceiving the public by pretending to be working but in actual practice, it's a motion without action.Whenever the public feels government is not living up to its expectations, the government responds by setting up a committee to look into the issues and as soon as the issues disappeared from the media and the public domain, the government returns to business as usual.The government does not act on the reports of respective panels or make them available to the public. As a result, the civil society groups are working on the issues of police reform. They set up their own parallel but a complementary panel, using the same reference, and producing results that will help in advocacy for serious reforms for the Nigerian Police Force (NPF).In fact, this panel has completed and written its reports and requesting a date with the President to submit these reports in order for him to take on board when considering the reports of other panels.Could you differentiate between community policing and state ownership of police'They are two distinct but may not be mutually different contexts depending on how they are organised. The idea of State Police, in my understanding, is that governors feel handicapped when it comes to safety and securing the lives of the people in their states. This is in the case of lacuna in the law, where they lack the power to control the Police, due to the position of the Constitution that recognises only one police force in the country. But reading in-between the lines, it's not the case.The governors have the feelings that they lack the same access to the instrument of coercion like the Federal Government in dealing with the elements considered their enemies. The governors want to replicate the same abusive type of police at the federal level.Community policing is a strategy and philosophy, which sees policing as an important matter that shouldn't be left in the hands of public service policing alone. Community needs to play a role and work together with the Police to identify common problems in the country and find a lasting solution to them before they become a major challenge that would consume the resources of the state.This is to say that community policing is a proactive strategy of policing rather than the conventional police strategy of reacting to crime after they have occurred.Going back, the Federal and State Police can comfortably intermarry, depending on how they are structured. With this, the State Police will be highly decentralised from the centralised federal police structure. The idea is to bring police closer to the people and at the municipal level, working closely with the communities, which makes policing more efficient in carrying out their functions.I don't have any problem with the State Police, if those canvassing it are sincere with such strategy of crime control. Let's look at the concerns people have about the system, which are twofold. If the states are allowed to set up police structure, will they be free from partisan political control'In other words, would police officers, under the State Police structure, be insulated from the governors and government officials to arrest and maim their so-called political enemies and oppositions the way they have handled and manipulated the state electoral officers in their states'If we can guarantee this and provide a legal framework to check it, and being professional enough to prevent these issues, then, it's worth having. If the second concern of the masses were addressed adequately, it would win more converts to the project, which has to do with the manner and method of recruiting personnel in the state.Most times, the state recruits personnel from so-called indigenes at the expense of other law-abiding residents of the state. If you set up State Police and they recruit from one ethnic group within the state, which is multi-ethnic and metropolitan, such as Lagos, Rivers, Plateau and most states in the North Central part of Nigeria, it will be a recipe for problems.In a situation where the Police didn't go out of their way against non-indigenes, the non-indigenes would be prejudiced, especially when it has to do with one ethnic group and member of the police, who belongs to another ethnic stock. To whom allegiance is owed becomes a trace of bias mind!These concerns, if addressed and infused in community policing philosophy and strategy, would free the Federal Police to concentrate on priority crimes such as terrorism, and also allow the State Police to deal with state and community crimes, which differ from one state to another.IT appears community policing has not worked in Nigeria; does that invalidate the argument for State Police'Before evaluating community policing as not working, the question remains: was community policing ever adopted, implemented and entrenched as a priority policing strategy and philosophy in Nigeria' The resounding answer is no.What we have been witnesses to are series of pilot programmes supported by foreign donors, especially the British Department for International Development (BDID). The government has not considered it important to invest in it.Community policing is not a project; it is a strategy or philosophy that is meant to permeate and pervade every aspect of policing in the country. And until it is implemented at that level, you cannot say it has not worked in Nigeria.Essentially, how do we reform the Police'Since 2006 when the idea of setting up a Presidential Committee on Police Reforms was mooted, we have not paid attention to the critical areas of police where reformation is needed, which is at the police stations.The police station is where the policing services are rendered; policing services are not rendered at the force headquarters or state commands. What we have at the force headquarters are the administrative matters, but the police station handles the policing services.Policing is a local initiative. The police station, which is the centre of policing services, has been neglected and abandoned over the years. Until we invest in that direction and redesign the station to acceptable model, it will continue to make nonsense of the varying efforts made towards reforming the police.In spite of the presidential panels and the adopted recommendations, if the average Nigerian goes to his local police station and sees the same thing he used to see, or things being done the way they are used to, then, we will continue to play the ostrich because to them, nothing has changed.So, all these reports, the major barometer in determining whether they are working or not, is what happens at the police station.What are your recommendations'Police and policing in the country has gone so bad and rough that we need to go back to the basis of policing. That is, policing is a local affair done at the police station and that changes need to begin from that level because that is where members of the public will notice if anything has changed in the country.The BDID has done some pilot projects in the country, on how police station should look like, the conduct of every policeman and facilities that should be in place. The government needs to get the programme and scale it up.
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