Aluu Four: State police and farcical constitution amendment (1)

THE hair-raising, hedonistic, primitive and barbaric killing of four students of the University of Port-Harcourt in Aluu community in River State by errant youths, who accused them of constant cultic and robbery activities in the community and environs, has reinforced the call for a radical restructuring of the country to berth true Federalism with the inherent component of State Police. According to news reports, the community’s vigilante group ferreted out the students from their hide-out in an uncompleted building over claims that the fury of their constant robbery attacks and cultic activities led to youths of the community clubbing them to death and setting their bodies on fire.
The disgusting feature of the pre-medieval resort to self-help and jungle justice in the absence of the police personnel and its corruptive maneuvering of cases reported to them has highlighted the handicap and short-comings of vigilante services currently in place in many communities. The services arose from the obvious failure of the Nigeria police.
The searing fact is that the Nigeria Police lack the basic facilities, equipment and adequate personnel to check the rising tide of criminality and civil disturbances all over the vast territory of the country. The Nigeria Police would have collapsed irretrievably but for the massive injection of public funds and supporting facilities by some state governors.  The Federal Government has proven that it cannot maintain a police force that can cover the entire Federation. The poor standard of prison services is an additional proof of the lack of capacity of the Federal Government to guarantee security on a grand scale. This is due to the over centralization of MDAs borne out of the age-long quest of the northern hegemony to control all sectors of our governance directly and indirectly.
This ever cunning, chameleonic phalanx have been manipulating and exerting subterranean influence on the ruling party (PDP) and the National Assembly to embark on a farcical Constitution Amendment of the 1999 Constitution. That greatly flawed constitution was imposed by the military to thwart the patriotic call for National Conference to produce a truly federal constitution that will berth true Federalism and its inseparable components such as state police and state prison services and massive decentralization of MDAs.
Vigilante service is a child of necessity and a crude interventionist innovation to bridge the yarning gap in the gross inadequacy and performance of the Nigeria police. The palpable solution to the pervasive insecurity and lawless resort to self help and jungle justice by aggrieved and exasperated victims of criminality is to replace vigilante services with state police.
The difference between vigilante services and state police is that the vigilante volunteers are not properly trained like the police. Formality in training, adequate personnel, facilities and requisite remuneration of vigilante services and conversion to state police will make their formal training a necessity. With training, they will be able to meet the yearnings and aspirations of the beleaguered masses who have been deprived of basic fundamental human right of security of life and property enshrined in the constitution. State police cannot be abused if the immunity clause for governors is removed and creative laws are made to check-mate their excesses and those of chairmen of local government councils.
The nation-wide outrage that greeted the hedonistic and primitive clubbing to death and burning of the four students in Aluu community has reinforced the imperative of state police which is an integral component of federal system of government all over the world.
In an elaborate opinion poll conducted by a team of reporters in the Tuesday October 16, edition of THE NATION, the president of Nigerian Bar Association, Barr. Okey Wali (SAN) pointed at the gross under-performance of the Nigeria Police and other security agents which, according to him, has its roots in the over centralization and the apparent collapse of justice system in the country. He said: “The system has definitely collapsed… a situation where people will parade some suspects some hours before they are eventually killed and there was no intervention from the law enforcement agencies is an obvious indication of the system failure.  If we have anything called security system in the society; those deaths would have been prevented because, from where those boys were beaten till when they died, from what we heard and read from the papers, there was sufficient time for the police to have intervened”.
On the clamour to re-invent a decentralized security structure as it was in the First Republic, the NBA President said: “That is why we call for state police because that will lead to better policing and protection of lives and property in addition to more intelligence gathering. The police are not well funded; they are not well equipped, so they are unable to match the criminals in the society, whereas if state police is the answer to the problems, so be it. Why not have it?”
Speaking in the same vein—which is the realistic position— out-spoken constitutional lawyer Fred Agbaje contended that Nigeria should stop groping in the dark by listening to the ultra conservative forces as represented by the northern political and religious leaders who stridently oppose state police. He argued eloquently that the northern establishment is opposed to state police for fear that it would strip them of age-long direct and indirect control of security apparatus of the country which we can all see has occasioned total collapse. He said: “Whatever the misgivings about state police, it’s still the best option in this season of social malady and extra-judicial killings.  Coupled with this anomie is the failure of the justice system, with so many awaiting trial inmates, slow speed of justice delivery, more corruption cases in court and fewer convictions arising from lack of logistics and tools to enhance justice delivery.’’
He maintained, “Absence of good governance and the wicked culture of impunity are cascading our political, economic and social landscape.’’ He went on to add, “Mass revolution as witnessed in the Arab world would be a perfect answer”.
Discernible and articulate foreigners as well as well-meaning Nigerians who monitor the print and electronic media on the controversial issue of restructuring the Nigerian Federation and the inherent decentralization of the Nigerian Police Force are obviously exasperated with the affairs of the country. What discerning minds have observed is that critical issues in the country are consistently given religious colouration and perceived along mediocre, parochial, and anti-intellectual calculations. I was flabbergasted when I listened to the interview which was aired in the Radio Nigeria Programme called “Platform” on Thursday August 30, 2012. The topic was the need for State police. What galled me was that the man said to be an opinion leader parried all the probing and intelligent questions put across by the interviewer on the need for a State Police. He merely restated the opposition of the northern establishment not only to the restructuring of the country along realistic Federation but also to state-run police structure as an integral component. For instance, on the envisaged prospect and opportunity for the graduates roaming the streets to be massively employed in the envisaged State Police structure, he denounced the prospect for employment on the ground that governments are not supposed to offer employment to everybody but to create an enabling environment for private enterprises.
Another curious opinion came from President Goodluck Jonathan when he was speaking at the 52nd annual general conference of the Nigeria Bar Association (NBA) in Abuja. He said that Nigeria was not yet ripe for state police. His ill-considered position can be described as a misguided concurrence of the supposed authoritative stand of the former president of Nigeria, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo during his imperial rulership of the country when Dr. Goodluck Jonathan was the Governor of Bayelsa State. According to Jonathan, he experimented on the posting of the regular members of the Nigeria Police who were indigenes of the State to the nooks and corners of the Bayelsa State and got very outstanding results on crime detection, prevention and effective and efficient maintenance of law and order. When he had an opportunity to discuss the unique empirical findings with the former President at a Council of State meeting, President Obasanjo announced to all the members that the country was not yet ripe for state police. Lamentably up till today when the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria is facing mounting and apparently insurmountable insecurity problems which require a realistic, proactive and radical approach and structure consistent with a federal system of government the world over, President Goodluck Jonathan clings feverishly to the thoughtless conclusion of the former Head of State. This is balderdash. Probably the country will be ripe for state police in 100 years time or never, due to primitive mindset of most of the political office holders and leaders! These people are all well formidably protected, leaving the common people exposed to the activities of evil men. One would have expected that given his superior academic achievements and personal experience as governor, President Jonathan would have differed from the position of Obasanjo which we can all see is not working. The central police are overwhelmed. Boko Haram is paralyzing social and economic activities in the far North, while it is kidnapping in the East and South- South, and armed robbery in the South-West.