BEFORE WE CONTEMPLATE HAVING STATE POLICE

A lot of talk about state police has come up of recent, with some groups for and some obviously against it. Former IGPs (Inspector General of Police) have voiced their concern about it, while former head of state IBB has voiced his favour for it. The one issue that seems to be somehow left behind is the police themselves. What do we do with the Federal police that as it is appears to be weak, let alone when we have state police under their various state government with undoubtedly their various laws? Already it seems state governments have the power to create additional “forces”, for example Kano has the Hisbah police. Although they are more of a social group, they are given the same authoritative power as the police by the state.

There are essentially two types of police, preventive (uniformed) police and detectives. One of the supposed many problems with the Nigerian force is there are too many preventive officers. The truth is in any country, uniformed officers outnumber non-uniform ones. The problem in Nigeria is we have more than our fair share of uniformed many who never seem to move up the ladder, hence why you become their employer when they stop you on the highway and call you, “Chairman” so you can pay their salary.

While the Nigerian force does have a CID (Criminal Investigation Department) it is not as prominently known as the uniformed officers who show up at your house, take notes and then go back to the station, where they still gather information in one of those long notebooks you last saw in secondary school with the cashier at your school shop and tell you, “We’ll look into it”.

Another thing is the men of the CID don’t have a fixed dress code in Nigeria, you can not tell a CID officer when you see one, because unlike how it should be required most of the time, they don’t dress in formal attire (suits). Yes, CID officers are allowed to dress in plainclothes for the purpose of blending in, but who would you take serious (supposing they’re not scam artists) if they showed up at you door claiming to be a police officer, the man in the suit with I.D or the plain clothe officer? It should mostly be the work of the SSS to not have to confirm to some formal dress code, unless when needed.

Another issue is how long a police officer should be allowed to stay in a unit. The fear is the longer officers stay in the same place, the easier it is to create "cliques" that can contribute to corruption or other unethical behavior, but this theory can be challenged if you have a team that works well together for the general public.

The second major issue after differentiating the types of police is how to move them u in ranks. To be able to do that, there has to be an expansion of the police force itself. Already the FRSC (Federal Road Safety Corp) has taken over dealing with major road traffic/violation issues, while the EFCC/ICPC have taken over dealing with high official cases, usually involving fraud. This seems to have left the police with less today and in a way rightfully so. The above mentioned organizations have done better at handling their assigned cases than the police would have if given the task. So what do the police have left, aside from putting up insurmountable roadblocks on the city’s highway? Well, they are a few options and this is where moving up in rank helps. For starters there is the already aforementioned CID, to be an officer in that department; one must have spent two years of preventive (uniform) service. I know police officers who have been in the same position for 5 years; I see them everyday when they stop me. Obviously one cannot move up just by virtue of two years preventive work, they must be assessment tests to evaluate the capability of such officers before letting them proceed, the minimum requirement being two years of preventive work (controlling traffic, checkpoints, e.t.c.).

There’s the opportunity to create a few more departments like a Highway patrol division. People seem to have it confused. What we have technically in Nigeria are police officers on our highway and not a highway patrol. The duties of highway patrol go beyond mere roadblocks and checkups, we have soldiers doing that, which shows again that something else has been taken from the police, but any addition is great in these dire times.

There’s the opportunity to create the Coast guards or Port police to handle maritime areas like the Lagos port and our various waterways. Again to be eligible here one must have the required two years.

Each division is assigned a certain function to be carried out duly and each one requires certain qualifications aside from the two year minimum. For example men/women who graduate to Highway patrol must have first hand knowledge of first aid kits in cases of accidents and should be equipped with ambulances and tow trucks. Men/women who graduate to Port police, must be able to swim and drive boats and so and so forth.

Another available option in expanding the police is what I refer to as State Department Police. This is police that deals with issues concern our borders and neighbouring countries. Already such a division exists under the Jonathan administration, where our intelligence/security personnel deal with crime-related issues concerning Nigerians in neighbouring West African countries. Obviously for the Nigerian police officer to be part of this he/she must have put in more than just two years of work and have at least a required knowledge of a foreign language, preferably French seeing as most of our neighbours are French speakers.

Of course all of these expansions could be nil without first improving the preventive stage of the police unit, where the largest number of officers are situated. Issues such as the use of weapons or any type of force, how to address the public, treatment of suspects, e.t.c need to be discussed. One very important issue that comes every now and then, only to be forgotten after public debate is the treatment of gunshot victims. Till this day, despite multiple incidents where innocent people have been allowed to die from gunshot wounds because hospital staffs fear the police labeling them as accomplices, we still haven’t allowed the innocent to be treated and if they are criminals why can’t the hospital staff be allowed to contact the authorities while they attend to the suspects. If this is not acceptable for the authorities then why can’t they assign police officers to hospitals to watch over gunshot victims? Must every innocent gunshot victim be turned into a criminal suspect? The police have blood on their hands for this! The most recent nationwide incident was during the Occupy movement when two young men were shot and refused to be attended to by hospital staff. While the police can argue that these rioters were acting out of control, it does not allow them to play with their lives either. It is unfair and unjust! This is one area where the expansion of the preventive force can be useful; assign officers to hospitals. Also the hospitals should play their part and request for police officers to be assigned to their institutions so as to avoid any bureaucratic back and forth as is likely happen. The police can not aware of every hospital and it’s going to take time to shake this “culture” of letting innocent people die because they’ve being shot!

Another issue is the holding of suspects. Not only do we fear trigger-happy police officers, we fear being accused of a crime and having our rights denied when in custody. With all these issues at hand, how can we contemplate having state police, when we haven’t dealt with the basics!