Assistant Editor, Dapo Falade, was at a discourse entitled 'State Police: To be or not,' organised by a Lagos-based strategic and corporate communications and marketing agency, recently at the MUSON Centre, Onikan, Lagos, where eminent Nigerians debated critical issues on state policing.STAKEHOLDERS, at various fora,have been expressing their viewson the agitation for state police. One of such fora was the national discourse, 'State Police: To be or not', organised by CMC Connect, a Lagos-based strategic and corporate communications and marketing agency, recently at Muson Centre, Onikan, Lagos where prominent Nigerians, including a former Inspector General of Police, Sir Mike Okiro, deliberated on the desirability or otherwise of having state-controlled police formations in the country, apart from the current police structure.Gathered at the event were keynote speakers cutting across all professions, including the Osun State governor, Mr Rauf Aregbesola (who was represented by his Commissioner for Lands and Physical Planning, Mr Muyiwa Ige); Okiro, Mr Opeyemi Agbaje and Mr Femi Falana, SAN. The discussants included Professor Akin Oyebode, of the Faculty of Law, University of Lagos, Dr Austin Tamu George, a lecturer and industrial relations specialist and Mr Onyekachi Mbani, Chairman, Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Ikeja Branch, while the moderators were Mr Yomi Badejo'Okusanya (Managing director, CMC) and Mrs Alero Edun.The first speaker, Mr Ige, noted that an efficient police is fundamental for any society to function. He said 'if there was a police force in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve would not have eaten the forbidden fruit and Cain wouldn't have killed Abel'. Noting that the police institution is designed to protect life and property, he stated that the idea of a police originated in Nigeria to protect the colonial interest namely, the Royal Niger Company (RNC). Dismissing the argument that state police had the potential of being abused by a ruling party to oppress opposition parties, he declared that the call for state police was premised on the fact that Nigeria is a federation by virtue of its constitution which provides for the exclusive, concurrent and residual lists, consisting of matters to be handled by the Federal Government, matters are to be legislated by both the federal and the state governments and matters that are exclusive to the state government, respectively.Mr Ige argued further that if law making, education, health and agriculture fall into the concurrent category, then security should not be exclusive to the Federal Government. Observing that state governments have no institutions to enforce state laws, he opined that the fear of abuse cannot vitiate the principles of federal necessity and the obvious need for law enforcement to be more efficient and effective. To the commissioner, the call for state police was based on the fact that its establishment would address and correct the anomalies currently being experienced in the practice of federalism. He gave examples of other jurisdictions such as the US where there is the Federal Bureau Investigation (FBI) working along with the state police and the County Police.Concurring with Ige, the second speaker, Mr Opeyemi Agbaje, who started his argument from an economic perspective, compared the policing system with the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) and Nigerian Telecommunications Limited (NITEL). He said the experimentation to have PHCN as a single agency to meet the demands for power by the whole country has failed. Ascribing the failure to the population and vastness of country, he said PHCN had to undergo reforms as to how to adequately generate and distribute power to the entire country.He also argued that cultural differences would always make police officers feel like strangers in the states where they have been posted as they are not familiar with the language and culture of their host communities. Noting that the essence of government is to make law, enforce them and ensure compliance by the people, he viewed central policing as a constitutional aberration because the Federal Government makes its laws and it has a police instrument to enforce it, while the state and local governments make laws but are helpless as to its enforcement. He said the powers of the state governors have been bridled in respect of security as the Commissioner of Police is accountable to the Federal Government in Abuja.Agbaje also said that the governors of the 12 northern states who enacted Sharia Law did not leave it in the hands of the regular police to enforce but created their enforcement agencies known as Hisbah, knowing that law without policing is worthless. He therefore submitted that Nigeria will never work except it creates a true federal system, just as he averred that the current policing system is just an aspect of the dysfunctionality of the Nigerian federalism. According to him, should Nigeria succeed with the federal policing system, it would be the first country in the world to attain such a feat.Faulting the arguments put forward by those who are opposed to state police, he said the argument that the police would used as an instrument to suppress the opposition was unfounded because under the current system, state governors already have enough powers to intimidate their opponents, such as the revocation of their Certificate of Occupancy (CoF), their considerable influence on the judiciary, and the influence over the state affairs in general. He also said that the argument that the fear of state police being a subject of abuse by state governors cannot be used as a criterion to continue a dysfunctional system. Instead, Agbaje argued, such potential for abuse should be checked and be remedied. According to him, it is even the Federal High Court that would have the power to check the abuse of power as regards fundamental human rights.While acknowledging the inherent problem of funding, he opined that it should not be an obstacle, as most federal agencies are now being funded by state governments due to the financial incapacity of the Federal Government. On the argument of likelihood of victimisation of non-indigenous police officers, he gave examples of agencies headed in Lagos State by non-indigenes such as the Infrastructure Regulatory Agency, headed by Mr Joe Igbokwe, the Lagos State Budget and Planning Ministry headed by Mr Ben Akabueze and the Lagos State Transport Management Agency (LASMA), headed by Mr Young Arabamen, who are all are non-indigenes of the state.Former IGP, Sir Mike Okiro, started his argument against state police by countering the argument put forward by Agbaje on the issue of funding, stating that apart from Lagos State, no other state can afford to effectively run a state police. Tracing the problem of the police to the present federal arrangement, the former IGP noted that if there was no effective federal police, there could not be an effective state police and attributed the problem to the fact that a series of recommendations for police reforms have never been implemented.Okiro, who acknowledged that state police in any federal system was desirable and advisable, noted the lack of entrenched democratic principles in the country and the fact that the country is not mature to have state police, especially because of the fear that it would be abused and misused by the state governors to the detriment of their opponents. He stated that the police is a reflection of the society, declaring that even under the present dispensation, it is the same type of people that are in the federal police that would be in the state police if it is eventually created. To buttress his point, he cited the various local government elections held in various states as an example to show the level of pervasive political corruption in the polity, noting that the ruling party in each state would always have its members as the chairmen and councilors at the helms of affairs at the local government level.Rather than advocating state police, the way forward, according to Okiro, is to confront the myriad of problems and challenges affecting the country generally, such as electoral violence, youth unemployment, corruption and poor education system. Noting that doing this would reduce crime in the country, the former IGP stated that good governance depends on good laws and if there is national stability and true democracy, there would be an efficient policing system in the country. He emphatically declared that the solution is not state police but devolution of powers to zonal Deputy Inspectors General of Police (DIGs) as means of getting the police closer to the grassroots.Dismissing the comment made that the ratio of officers of the Nigerian Police to the populace is uneven, based on the United Nations (UN)-prescribed a ratio of one policeman to 400 persons, Okiro argued that since the UN is based in New York, the standard cannot apply practically to Nigeria. He gave an example of his experience during a patrol in New York with their policemen and his discovery regarding the appropriate linear numbering of houses, adequate patrol vehicles and technological means to combat crime. He, therefore, concluded that with the paucity of technology advancement in Nigeria, as well as the other reasons adduced, Nigeria is not mature for a state policing system.For Professor Akin Oyebode, a strong advocate of loose federation, Nigeria has a deformed federal system and the country should either comply with international best practices or go back to a unitary system and shed its federalism pretensions. He quoted a former Deputy President of the Federal republic of Nigeria who once said stated the country practices 'feeding bottle' federalism where the state governors go to the Federal Government every month to collect their allowances. He stated that any country that was heterogeneous, multi-lingual, multi-cultural and multi-ethnic had no other way of co-habiting except through a federal structure. According to the renowned academic, the question of state police had to be factored into the quest for a deconstruction of the present arrangement.Wondering why state governors were called Chief Security Officers, when they could not give directives to the Commissioners of Police within their state, Oyebode referred to Section 215(4) of the 1999 Constitution of Nigeria which provides that the Commissioner of Police must refer any instruction given to him by the governor in his state either to the IGP, in Abuja or to the President who is the Commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces, declaring that the governors are mere prefects. He traced the problem to the military governments that usually practiced a unified system and claimed that Nigeria is only pretending to run a democratic system as the constituent units of the federation must be empowered to be in charge of their affairs.Oyebode also countered the argument that Nigeria was not ripe for a state police system, saying such an argument was not tenable for a country that is over 52 years old. He claimed that the Nigeria Police, as presently constituted, had proven to be ineffective, ineffectual and unable to guarantee law and order in the country. In conclusion, the professor of law stated that the time was ripe to put the state governors where they belong, namely, empowering and putting them in charge of security in their domains, in conformity with international best practices. He went beyond the confines of the topic for discussion as he called for a general meeting of the various ethnic groups in Nigeria (which he said are over 406) to discuss the need for a change.For Dr Austin George, who said he was not speaking as a representative of the police, but as a citizen, once people identify with those who constitute their police force, there is a tendency for accountability. According to him, the practice of federalism constitutes the need for decentralisation as obtainable in Brazil, USA and Canada.George argued that Nigeria is a country of 'a people divided' and declared that Nigeria is a state and not a nation as a nation resides in the heart of its people.He insisted that institutions such as the police are one of the few that actually joins Nigerians as one people and that state police will encourage illegal vigilante groups such as OPC, Bakassi Boys and the Arewa to become legal. All these formations, George said, would have legitimacy and divide the country even more, hence the need to sort out the very nature of the Nigerian politics.'Except we essentially tackle the nature of our current state, then we cannot talk of a state-run police system. Ironically, the states who want autonomy to run their own security affairs, are themselves unable to grant similar autonomy to another constitutionally-recognised arm of government, the local government. Therefore, elected officials are moved with total impunity', he said and concluded that Nigerians need to understand and cure the character of the state because the police are not insulated from the society. In tandem with Okiro's position, George said the police are a perfect reflection of the character of the Nigerian states themselves and there is the need to solve the larger problems of the Nigerian politics.When Mr Mbani, Ikeja NBA chairman, took the floor, he dismissed the argument of those opposed to state police on grounds of political immaturity and abuse by those in power. He asked, 'How many months or years do we, as a country, have to wait before we attain political maturity' According to him, 'political maturity is built with the establishment of institutions whose powers can be defined and checked by laws and limits. In Nigeria, we have made several mistakes of appointing the wrong people into power, who loot and commit atrocities.'Mbani also dismissed the issue of funding, saying some states, like Lagos and River states, had been financing their internal security i.e. vehicles, training, helicopters etc. Thus, he stated that the states needed to re-order their priorities and stop 'stealing the money' in order to allow the development of infrastructure in their states. Concluding, the NBA chairman said true federalism must be reinstated in Nigeria in line with law which allows the states to have their own police.Mr Falana, SAN cited some instances of abuse by the police to justify his call for state police. According to him, a colleague got a judgment against the Nigeria Police the wrongful arrest and eventual murder of his son without any basis. The police tried to deny this allegation but it was proven beyond reasonable doubt. In another case, Falana claimed that an eight-year-old boy was arrested in place of his father who was wanted by the police. He said that the police were grossly abused by the Federal Government, adding that, with money, one does not need to be a governor to control the police as he noted that those opposed to state police are the rich who are heavily guarded by the state security apparatus. 'Even in our private estate, we spend so much money guarding our lives and properties with hired security. We no longer rely on the federal police to protect us. If we can have an illegal police force in our neighbourhood, then we should give the state police a chance to do this', he said.Arguing that the government cannot do it alone because of so much looting and corruption, the Lagos-based lawyer said Nigerians must engage in true democracy and liberalise the society, declaring that 'The fear of control must be addressed. Ethnicity is for the elite; the poor and hungry do not see the difference. There is no issue of ethnicity when the loot is being shared.'At the end of the deliberation, both sides agreed that Nigeria, as a corporate entity, is rooted in corruption and bad governance. Hence, there is the need to address the issues of corruption, bad governance, ethnic division and fear of immaturity or insecurity, with the aim to make Nigerians to begin to trust each other and not what ethnic group or culture we represent.Indeed, if the country is to adopt state police as a means of checkmating the increasing spate of insecurity, the leadership should be mature enough to tackle the fundamental issues that might topple the idea of state police before it is even set up.
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