Monday, 6 August 2012

Reflections on state police.

The proposal for a state police appears to have become mired in politics. And like most issues in the country in which the emotionally-charged identities of region and religion are brought in to interface in the discourse, opinions and positions appear to increasingly converge with the politics of North-South divide. Of course it is sometimes difficult to know when the purveyors of the various perspectives really mean what they say and when they are merely grandstanding or perhaps trying to use their publicly stated positions as bargaining chips in the authoritative allocation of values in other areas of our national political economy. The danger of dragging the emotive issue of primordial identity into what should be a rational political discourse, however, is that while our favourite past time as Nigerians is to bemoan why things don’t work in our country, we will often be happy to vote for things not to work if what is necessary to make those things work will be perceived as disadvantaging or humiliating ‘our people’, even if temporarily.

Several issues are raised by the current arguments for, and against, state police:
One, state police, which are a type of sub-national territorial police force, operate widely across the world in both federal and non-federal states. Where they are found, they are usually responsible for most normal police duties, including the maintenance of public order, criminal detection and highway patrol. Countries with territorial police include USA, UK, Australia, Canada, India, Japan and Switzerland. Contrary to popular belief, having state police does not preclude having national police forces. For instance, in the United Kingdom where you have territorial police, including special police for some towns such as the Metropolitan Police for the Greater London Area, you also have national police with specific, non-regional jurisdiction such as the British Transport Police who are responsible for policing the railways and light rail systems. Similarly, in the USA with its multiplicity of state and county police forces, there are various specialized agencies that enforce national laws such as the FBI, the Department of Justice (DOJ), the Drug Enforcement Administration and the United States Coast Guards.
In Nigeria, sections 214 and 215 of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) provide that the Nigerian Police shall be under the full and exclusive control of the federal government and that the authority and powers of the force extends over the entire country. At the apex of the Nigeria Police Force is the Inspector General of Police who is vested with the command of the entire Police Force.  Each state of the federation has a commissioner of police who is the commander of the contingent of police stationed in the state but answerable to the IGP.
Two, proponents of state police argue that given the pervasive insecurity in the country, it is important to have state police so the state governors can effectively be in charge of security in their domain. They see as anomalous the idea that a governor who is constitutionally designated as the chief security officer of his state is neither in control of the police forces stationed in his state nor is he allowed to establish one. It is also argued that policing is essentially a local service and that since most crimes are local in nature, a state police force may be needed because crime detection will often require local knowledge and methods that such a state police force can better provide. Proponents of state police equally argue that the Nigerian police, as constituted, are grossly underfunded and ill-trained and that many state governments are already helping in the provision of logistics to the police forces stationed in their state.
Three, the opponents of state police have their own arguments: For instance, they argue that a state police force will be abused by the state governors as happened under the First Republic. They call attention to several instances of state abuse of state agencies such as the State Independent Electoral Commissions (SIECs) which have not been able to conduct elections to local governments in most states since their creation because the governors do not want such elections. Attention is also drawn to the emasculation of state legislatures and the virtual pocketing of state High Courts by these governors. It is equally argued that the establishment of state police will empower secessionist tendencies as it will make it easier to militarize the various ethnic militias. Opponents of state police also argue that state police will impose a strangulating financial burden on the states, most of which are already on the brink of bankruptcy. For most of the opponents of state police, therefore, it will be better to strengthen the existing police force by embarking on reforms, including those that will help it to meet the UN recommended target of at least 220 police officers per 100,000 citizens.
Four, while I share some of the concerns of the opponents of state police, I feel strongly  that given the enormous crisis in our nation building project and the near consensus that ‘true federalism’ is the answer, the notion of state police readily recommends itself. I completely reject as self-fulfilling prophecy the argument that we are not ‘ripe’ for state police. What are we then exactly ripe for, one may ask?
While I am in full support of state and even local government and special police forces at the states, I equally share the concerns about the possible misuse of such police by state governors who are more or less Machiavellian Octopuses in their enclaves. Just as I believe there is a need to reduce the powers of the federal government, there is equally a need to drastically reduce the powers of state governors and local government chairmen by introducing effective safeguards and checks and balances. I believe that restructuring the country should precede the introduction of state police. The country first needs to agree on the appropriate number of states for the country, the units that will partake in revenue sharing from the federation account and the system of sharing revenue among the different tiers of government. A state police without the necessary structural reforms will only compound the problems.
Five, it is difficult to fathom out the real reasons why the Northern Governors are opposing the idea of state police. Their formal argument that such could lead to the break-up of the country unfortunately plays into the hands of those who unfairly accuse the region of being parasitic. In any marriage, it is often wrong for one partner to give the impression that he or she is unduly scared of the marriage imploding up because the impression will then be created that the partner is an undue beneficiary from the union. Both partners must desire the marriage for it to work and no one should be allowed to use it as a tool of blackmail. In the unlikely event that Nigeria breaks up, there is no way of knowing which area will fare better or worse as necessity is often the mother of invention. In fact, if we use the current internally generated revenue as a measure of which area will survive in the unlikely event of a break-up, then only Lagos and Sokoto States will. According to the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Lagos had the highest IGR in 2008/2009 of 60 per cent followed by Sokoto State which had an IGR of 46 per cent. Besides, why should a region which undoubtedly is the food basket of the country continue to give the impression that it is dead-scared of the country imploding? And this is coming after the same forum not long ago called the bluff of champions of the Sovereign National Conference – part of the political cat and mouse games played by the various regional and ethnic factions of the elite – by suddenly supporting the idea? I feel that those who purport to speak for the North sometimes take positions that play into the hands of their political adversaries.
My personal opinion is that in the unlikely event of the break-up of the country, one of the most vulnerable parts of the country will be the Niger Delta. This is because in the resource curse theory and practice in Africa, countries endowed with abundant natural resources have a higher tendency for instability and even wars as we see in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and as happened in Liberia.
Six, it is always good to ‘jaw-jaw’ and Nigerians debating passionately about state police enrich our marketplace of political ideas which is a key infrastructure of any democracy. In the marketplace of ideas notion of democracy, ideas compete vigorously for acceptance.  In this sense, Rep Gerald Irona, who is the Vice Chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Gas, got it all wrong when he declared that “people canvassing for state police had evil agenda and do not want the corporate existence of Nigeria.” (BusinessDay July 29 2012). You cannot use blackmail to suppress ideas you do not like in the marketplace of ideas because the only acceptable currency is the power of the thoughts and the logic behind them. Resort to blackmail is often an indication that either one has no ideas to market or that the power and logic behind his ideas are not strong enough to compete.

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