Nigeria Police: It’s Too Late to Cry

by Olusola Aladejebi

In 1980, in Ibadan, there was an attempt to steal my father’s car. The robber and his accomplice had succeeded in breaking the gate padlock and had opened the driver’s door of the car. Thanks to the incessant barking of a dog in the compound that awoke everyone, they could not make away with the new car. At the gate vicinity my father and other residents found the damaged padlock and the metal rod used to damage it. The padlock even had the greasy finger prints of the robber. Investigation made simple!

My father goes to the Police station to report the attempted robbery (primarily to guard against implication had the robbers taken anything in the car). The police asked him to make a statement after which they asked whom he suspects. He told them he didn’t suspect anybody. ‘Then no crime’, was their reply. That happened about 40 years ago! A concerned Ghanaian neighbour, who probably recently migrated to Nigeria, asked if the police had come to take fingerprints! My father shook his head in his heart. He wondered in himself if any of the policemen in the station knew what taking fingerprints meant. Today in 2018, I seriously doubt if there is any facility in the whole of Oyo State for analysing fingerprints.

The Nigeria Police having had a long history of incompetence, it therefore didn’t come as a surprise to me the report that 3 suspects in the case against Dino Melaye escaped from custody (although police have told us they have now been rearrested). The Inspector General of Police (IGP) swiftly suspended the Kogi State commissioner of Police to which I say to the IGP: It’s too late to cry when the head is off.

Last year, based on findings in 2016 the World Internal Security and Police Index (WISPI), the Nigeria Police was ranked worst in the world. This didn’t come as a surprise to many. Of course, the spokesman for the Police, Jimoh Moshood, condemned the report noting that the Nigeria Police is the best in Africa. I doubt he even believes himself.

I have had some pitiful experiences with the Nigeria Police. I will relate one of them. Few years ago, I thought it was something good if I had a number of the Divisional Police station close to my house in case of any violence or crime in the neighbourhood. When I asked the policewoman I met at the counter, she was immediately defensive asking questions like: who are you? What do you do? Why do you need the number! As I was stating the ‘visible-to-the-blind’ reason I wanted the number another policeman in mufti who I adjudged to be a superior walked out to counter. The lady police gladly put the ‘case’ in his hands. He also asked meaningless questions but essentially told me they couldn’t give me the Police Division’s number but to call State patrol in the event of crime in my area. And so I asked for the numbers of the police patrol. He directed me to the State Police Headquarters! You would think I was asking for some classified info.

Recently, however, the State Police Control number is publicised daily by the State-owned TV station. Some sensible person at the TV station thought it was a number every citizen should have. Be that as it may, my experience I related above shows the Nigeria Police as an organization that is grossly disempowered. Many personnel are shifty, showing little confidence on their jobs. The reason? Because they understand that the terrain is filled with mines. Right is defined at any point in time by what their boss wants, even if it is something criminal. And right for that boss may also defined by what his own boss wants; and so it goes up the hierarchy. Thus for the majority of policemen on the street, what is right to do on their job is not what the constitution or the criminal laws states.

I pity the few honest patriotic ones who exist in such toxic environment. The resident toxicity of the system manifests, for instance, when for citizen A who commits a particular crime, he receives harsh treatment from the law; an hour from the event another citizen B who commits the same crime is treated as VIP. The compass is lost. They are at sea without sure guiding light.

So to IGP Ibrahim Idris the problem with Nigeria Police is not suspending a commissioner of Police. (Maybe if the boss of the IGP, President Buhari had acted in a similar vein the IGP himself should be under suspension as we speak for disobeying an order to relocate to Benue to handle the herdsmen crisis. But that is discussion for another day). The suspension may be a step in the right direction but as a stand-alone action, it is meaningless.

Again I say: it is too late to cry when the head is off. The head is off because the Nigeria Police which is the foremost law enforcement agency is Nigeria is teeming with personnel who are very lawless. But you retort, ‘the Police is lawless because society itself is corrupt.’ That fact is undebatable. But the reason there is law enforcement (police) in society in the first place is so as to keep persons with overt criminal tendencies in check. This suggests therefore that persons who are to be police should be persons with above average moral fibre. This clearly is not the case with the Nigeria Police. It even seems the direct opposite is true. The same thing should apply to education. The smartest of us should teach in schools. However, the opposite is more so than not. Dysfunction all over!

The head is off. The current system in Nigeria Police is NEVER going to work. For a new head on a fresh neck, there must be a total system overhaul. But a smart way towards this total system overhaul is being talked about now and then: State Police. Having State Police is a just a smarter way. It does not necessarily make the task easy.

If we however continue with a central police structure, the total Police system overhaul is still attainable. It may just be the greatest achievement we can pull off as a nation! The task is considered so huge that when I told a fellow summit participant of my wish to be among the non-police component of the nation’s police system overhaul, he looked at my hair (the writer is in his mid 30s), and said before long my hair would turn white!

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