The Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Kayode Egbetokun, went the route of some of his predecessors in office when he posited recently that Nigeria was not ripe for a state police. At a national dialogue on state police organised by the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Tajudeen Abbas, and held last week in Abuja, the IGP added that “state governors could use the police forces under their control for political or personal gain and undermine human rights and security.” According to him, states also do not have the resources to support state police.
Some other Nigerians hold the same view as Egbetokun. Unfortunately, their position is part of the reasons the state police concept has not officially taken off in Nigeria. Former President Muhammadu Buhari, for instance, stridently opposed the idea when he was President. His main reason was that states might not be able to shoulder the burden of paying the police. In 2022, he cited the poor relationship between state governors and local government chairmen, asking if the third tier of government was getting what it was supposed to get constitutionally.
We acknowledge that the fear of abusing state police is real and should not be totally dismissed. Some overzealous state governors can easily use state police as attack dogs against opponents. But the central police can also be abused as well. The atrocities of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) of the police precipitated the #EndSARS protests of 2020 and the subsequent scrapping of the squad.
Despite the fears of abuse of the system, the tempers of the time require that Nigeria is ripe for different layers of policing. Many Nigerians had called and still call for the establishment of state police in the country. Twenty out of 36 state governors expressed support for its establishment at the National Economic Council. Even at the event where Egbetokun made his statement, prominent Nigerians like former President Goodluck Jonathan expressed support for the concept. Jonathan said state police had become non-negotiable. The spate of kidnapping and other crimes in Nigeria, he added, made it a must-have.
At the event also, President Bola Tinubu said his administration was committed to reforming the policing system for better security of the nation. Former Head of State, Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar, also backed reforms in the policing system. According to him, traditional rulers should be part of the state police structure due to their knowledge of their local terrain.
Last year, the Yoruba socio-political group, Afenifere, urged President Tinubu to sign an Executive Order for the establishment of state and community policing as a way to curb insecurity in Nigeria. The apex Igbo socio-cultural group, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, the Middle Belt Forum and the Pan Niger Delta Forum (PANDEF) had similarly called for the establishment of state police in Nigeria.
This is how it should be in a country that practises true federalism. As we had noted in previous editorials on this issue, there are different layers of policing in many federal states. In a country like the United States, there are county, city, state, and federal police. We practise this informally in Nigeria where we have different vigilance groups in some parts of the country. In the South-West, there is Operation Amotekun, which was established in 2020 and funded by the South-West states. In some parts of the South-East, there is Ebubeagu security outfit. A state like Anambra has Anambra Vigilante Services (AVS) which is very effective in tackling the spate of insecurity in the state. Kano State has the Hisbah security outfit. The contract for the protection of oil pipelines is given mainly to non-state actors in the Niger Delta. Even in the First Republic, there were regional police forces.
What this indicates is that crime is essentially local and it takes local police that understand the terrain and peculiarities of a place to tackle it effectively. They are also more responsive than the central police whose response time is not good. The state or community police also complement the efforts of the central police whose numerical strength, which is less than 400,000 personnel, is abysmally low.
What we can do is to put adequate measures or laws in place to curb possible abuse of state police. For instance, issues of jurisdiction and functions of the different layers of policing should be spelt out in the laws establishing them. Their roles should be complementary and none should be seen to undermine the efforts of the other.
In all, the present centralised police system cannot guarantee adequate security for Nigeria. We can copy the United States example. President Tinubu should do well to initiate the establishment of state police and see to its effective takeoff as soon as possible.