₦airaland Forum

Thanks to all the unbiased commentators: EmperorOlu, UcheUwadi_, tensor777 and ziga.

Your points are well taken. I however think that we should not wait until all the crooked politicians are killed before we can have state and local police system in place. We may never even be able to kill off those guys. We need something now.

All it needs is a federal law or constitutional amendment specifically outlining the operational areas or boundaries of different police formations to be set up -the local police on the one hand, and the federal police on the other hand. Of course the federal police should always be better armed and better equipped. This would enable them step in to take over a situation and make necessary arrests in times of abuse as you fear.

No city or county police in the US can withstand the FBI for instance. Therefore the check would be there. We cannot throw away the baby with the bath water. There will always be governors, local govt chairmen who would be tempted to abuse their power, but they risk being arrested by the federal police and removed from office. The federal police will have a lot of firepower to step in whenever necessary.

I really think that this fear is unfounded because we have always had the Hisbah, Vigilante services in the east and LASTMA in Lagos. All that is needed is better training, better recruitment and better equipment for them. These bodies will sweep our streets and neighborhoods of criminals enabling all to walk around any time of the day or night.

Again we need to build more prisons and jails to contain the upsurge in arrests.

There is no amount of single federal police that can accomplish this task. Nigeria is unique and needs a combination of tactics. To reduce the task of policing 150 million west Africans to a single police formation is day dreaming. It can never contain the situation.

KnowAll:
You East Central Igbos, your brothers in the swamps would continue to denouce their tribe if you dont drop this unrealistic and utopian idea of a[b] Biafra state[/b]. You make them scared each time u come up with these expansionsit and land grabbing, resource grabbing concept of Biafra. Except if u spell it out explicitly to them that [b]Biafra [/b]would only be limited to what was once East Central State.

Biafra has actually blocked your thinking pipe and rendered you completely moronic. Who mentioned Biafra here now?
Anytime you read up anything on Igbo or eastern affairs you sh'i't your pants. In the other thread on state police, you couldn't even contain yourself to first read the topic before panicking down your views that it would be abused by tribalists and secessionists (by implication). Why not go and learn courage first before airing any views in public. It is impossible to intelligently discuss a topic when you are busy sh't'ting your pants at the mention of Igbo, or any thing that may be remotely related to self determination.
Coward!

KnowAll:
So how do you recruit police officers in Nigeria today? Simple question.



I have stated it needs to be revisited, check out my first post again. A committe just like the Uwais reports that drew the amendments for the constitution should be reconvened with the sole aim of redrafting and tweaking the charter of the Nigerian Police force.

The charter establishing it has being left untouched since the 1960's and needs to be reviewed and mordernised after all the 12 states created in 1967 has blossomed to 36 states today.

So what happened to the Uwais report? I don't trust all these committees and their reports. We've had tonnes of them ever and none of them were implemented.
The message here is simple -to all on this forum who might have an idea of how to move this idea to the next level:

We need state police and local government police
To be recruited from across the country (like is done in US and elsewhere and even Nigeria)
The local authorities should decide (according to their budget and taste) the qualification of their policemen and the number to recruit.
The current NPF should be disbanded and replaced with another federal police probably called FEDPOL or FIIB bringing together -SSS, EFCC, FIIB and all similar formations. They should not wear uniforms except operational gears marking them out as police during operations,and should be armed with almost the same firepower as the military.

Local police should only be on patrol cars/vehicles and armed with hand guns, light assault weapons and batons (remember batons? ). They should also wear uniforms and patrol on feet, cars, motorcycles and bicycles in the rural areas. They should also carry walkie talkie. Bottomline is that they should know their operational areas well. The states can receive federal tokens, fixed (equal across all states) allocations of grants to support these local police forces.

The next is a change in our legal system to the effect that crimes should be broken into state and federal crimes. Some crimes like kidnapping, terrorism, hijacking and similar crimes should trigger the intervention of the federal police. While other crimes like armed robbery, theft, rape, secret cult, mugging, "alaye"ism and similar crimes should attract state or local government police.

I don't need another committee to tell me how to fix Nigeria's security problems.

Make me president of Nigeria today and I will deliver a first world security system in under 4 years!

Before going by a name KnowAll, be sure you actually know something. Don't allow your ego to come between you and common sense.
Nigerian Police Force recruits people from all over the country today. All we need is for states and local government areas to recruit the same way but do a better job of it by recruiting better people (eg graduates) who can learn the local language and patrol remote areas of the state and local towns. That is a no-brainer.
But, Nigerians carry huge ego that blocks their brains!

^^^
So how do you recruit police officers in Nigeria today? Simple question.

It also entails that a policeman in a state or local government must be able to speak the local language of his employment area. At that local level, intelligence gathering is impossible without the command of local language.

Also I would prefer they disband the current Nigerian police force and replace it with a force merging the SSS, FIIB, EFCC and NCDC. These are federal police formations. They should be plain clothed unless when conducting an operation -then they should be in full operation gear clearly marking them out as police.

The local cops should have both uniformed and plain cloth officers.

This is the way forward for Nigerian security. All these pre-1960 arrangements should be crapped and dumped into antiquity!

^^^

I don't think you even took the time to read my suggestion above before posting. Please read it again. What I'm recommending is the recruitment of police officers and men from all over the country to serve in states and local police formations-NOT LOCAL RECRUITMENT!
Nigerians are so lazy to read. Please read first.
How can such a force be used to carry out ethnic agenda? It's like saying the military or Nigerian police force could be used for ethnic agenda.
The only difference in this arrangement is that the police will be local and operate locally at local government or state level. Any posting would be within the state (not out of state, like posting from Rivers to Kano state! ) If all policemen also live among people and not in barracks, it will reduce the "we vs them" mentality of the Nigerian police.
All this does is to empower governors and local government chairmen (or Sheriff) to tackle crime at the very local level.
Tell me, where can a kidnapper hide when there are local sheriffs patrolling all the rural roads and bushes?

Please think before opposing. Nigerians have issues with thinking. Any new idea raises alarms of secession. I don't know for how long we can keep a foolish law enforcement system and expect peace and security which is needed for economic growth.
We need courageous leaders who can make revolutionary changes.

^^^
Can you compare those with the rag tap forces in the thread opener? No comparison whatsoever. All good things must begin at local levels. The Federal government can copy if they need to, not the other way round. That is what is called true federalism.

We have too many graduates wasting away without jobs. They can be employed and trained to provide 21st century policing at the state and local government levels, like the ones below:

I can't imagine how kidnapping will survive in the south east if every local government has a police formation. Even state police can make kidnapping obsolete within a very short time because all they would be doing is local identification and beat runs. A policeman can know an area like the back of his hands. They also should not be quartered in barracks, but live among ordinary folks like is the practice abroad. A governor who wants to stamp our some of the most egregious crimes would have the power to do so.
I don't know how something so simple can be so complex for Nigerian leaders. I tire o!

If there is a federal law requiring every police formation in Nigeria to recruit from all over the country, the fear of a sharia or tribal police will fizzle out.

I am a die hard supporter of state and local government police. They are absolutely necessary! If the fear is that they could be abused, then let there be a law requiring all state and local government police to recruit officers and men from different parts of the country.
The benefits are too many. We cannot continue to allow fear rule our lives.

[center][size=14pt]State Police To Be Or Not?[/size][/center]

HE clamour for the establishment of state police has been on for a long time. Many will recall the role former Lagos State governor, Bola Tinubu, played during the administration of former President Olusegun Obasanjo, how he tried endlessly to convince everybody on the need for states’ owned police force.

And in a way, the former governor almost put together a quasi-police with the creation of the Lagos State Traffic Management Authority (LASTMA). A lot of people believed that the establishment of LASTMA by Tinubu was a surreptitious way of telling the Federal Government that he was determined to prove a point that the states need policemen of their own.

Arguments For State Police
Only recently, the Senate renewed the call for the creation of state police. This came in the wake of a bomb blast that rocked the Warri Government House annex in Delta State as stakeholders and other guests were holding talks on how to achieve permanent peace in the Niger Delta.

The intensity and the magnitude of the blast must have stunned many observers and which ultimately resulted in the renewed clamour for the establishment of state police as a means of strengthening security at state levels.

A number of the senators really supported the motion entitled: “Bomb attacks in Warri” being sponsored by Senator Victor Ndoma-Egba. In his comment, Senator Ike Ekweremadu noted that he was aware that a lot of Nigerians were opposed to state police, but that he believed that it was something that even when we run away from today, would eventually confront Nigerians in the future.

According to him, in the past, especially during the colonial days, there was the native authority police and there was no centralised police as we have now. He added that it was time the country started to consider this seriously to return to not only state police, but local government police as well. He noted further that every part of Nigeria had its own peculiar problem and that this peculiarity informs the need for them to have the type of police that would deal with issues that confront those sections.

On his part, Senator Effiong Bob said he believed that with state police, the level of criminal activities and other forms of hooliganism in states and local government areas would be reduced drastically.

And like many others who have added their voices to the issue of state police, the senators may have concluded that there is no alternative to the establishment of state police.
Arguments Against

However, the arguments against the establishment of state police may have informed the reluctance of the Federal Government in acceding to the clamour for it. It is generally believed that the governors of each state of the federation may turn such outfit into a terror tool with which they will fight oppositions in their states.


Not only this, the people who are against the establishment of the state-owned police are of the opinion that it may be counter-productive at the end of the day, as some of them may not conform to the established norms of a conventional police worldwide.

This is because the level of illiteracy and abrasiveness among Nigerians, particularly those to be recruited for such establishments, may have taken the usefulness of the state police away.

Besides, as some have rightly argued, the states, with the exception of a few, are too poor to finance a police that will conform with laid-down rules in a decent society.

Furthermore, those in this category expressed reservation about the current Nigeria police who are poorly paid, which in many ways, contributes to their apathy and inefficiency.

They also believed that a clear-cut demarcations may not be drawn between the Federal police and the state police which may cause clashes of work and interest.

Fear of Turning Into Ethic Militants
Many are quick to point to what could be regarded as an attempt at creating state police with some ethnic militias, like the Oodua Peoples’ Congress (OPC), the Bakkassi Boys, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger-Delta (MEND) and their likes and the atrocities that they each unleashed on their communities. These and many more were the reasons many canvassed against the establishment of the state police.

But to a lot of Nigerians, all these demerits are not enough to the establishment of the state police. Like the senators who contributed to the debate on the floor of the Senate recently, many Nigerians are of the opinion that the establishment of state police was long overdue.

The view is that it is the people of each state that could provide adequate security since they know each other better. In a way, they believed that criminal activities will continue to rise if the Federal Government did not deem it fit to allow states create their own police forces.

Nigerians Speak
Chief Niyi Akintola, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), in an interview with the Saturday Tribune, said no other country in the world centralised its police the way it was done in Nigeria.

He pointed out that the issue of centralising everything in Nigeria negates the principle of federalism which the country is practising, saying this is too dangerous for the country.
According to him, state police is not only desirable, but necessary.

He added that having a state police is a sine qua non for peace in the country. He said the country needed not only the state police, but also local government police, adding that anybody who is opposed to the creation of state police is an enemy of the people.

Akintola stated further that it was wrong to bring somebody from a distant state to come and police in a strange land, when he knew nothing about the place.

He said it is only the people in each state that could police their areas. He berated the Federal Government’s efforts at centralising everything, saying this had weakened the state.

He stated further that the argument against the establishment of state police that it may be abused


http://www.tribune.com.ng/sat/index.php/features/743-state-police-to-be-or-not.html

^^^

Dat bull score real bulls eye! Hehe!

Lol it appears as if you are still bitter that the guy and APGA won the elections. Your title betrayed you.
Anyway, I want Governor Obi to seriously improve the political chance of Apga in next years elections in the south east. This is one area where I miss Chekwas Okorie. He was able to make Apga a seriously emerging party. That is one area Victor Umeh has not impressed in. We need Apga to expand quickly and grow from the grassroots of south east. We need to implement a common development agenda.

The question should be:

[size=18pt]WHAT IS VICTOR UMEH DOING TO EXPAND APGA?[/size]

One more reason why we need State Police. Or even local government and city police.

IBB is not vindictive, greedy, extremely selfish and cowardly. He does not empower criminals to work for him as special advisers. He believed in fairness across the length and breath of Nigeria. He never singled out any tribe for humiliation and vilification.

Beaf:
IBB is the devil incarnate and a living demon. Only Abacha has been worse than him.

I love Beaf too much, so all I've say is that IBB is a better character than OBJ.

Katsumoto:
What a load of rubbish!!!!!!!!!
It was Abacha that was feared and not IBB. IBB was dancing to the the tune of a bunch of economists and bankers at the IMF

He was listening to opinion of experts. He selected the best economists in Nigeria to examine and implement the programs, from SAP to SFEM, etc.
He was feared and respected in Africa for sending troops to Liberia.

You say he was courageous; yet he sent Bello to die in his place. IBB was a coward; he couldn't even confront Dimka at Radio Nigeria after Danjuma gave him a direct order to flush Dimka out. It was Major Ugokwe who flushed Dimka out, yet IBB took the credit for it for a long time until he was found out.

We don't know the whole story so no need arguing about that. Bello was supposed to die in his place, he was IBBs ADC. duh?

IBB created all those bodies to be able to hound unharmed pro-democracy activists. Many governments around the world greate intelligence bodies to gather intelligence to forestall any attacks. It is only in Nigeria where Intelligence bodies go after innocent people.

Well all those agencies are still around (except the national guard that was changed to NCDP). All security agencies he set up are still there today.

He followed public opinion is selecting option A4 and what did he do after option A4 produced a president.
Were there no senseless killings in the North when IBB was president? There were several in Kaduna and Kano. I will not waste my time mentioning each one.
Was it not IBB that banned civilians owning guns after Igbo traders returned fire for fire when almajiris went on rampage in 1991?

Some people felt that Abiola would cheat them if allowed to become president and they went ahead to scuttle it. If IBB wanted, he could have continued ruling and nothing would have happened. He stepped aside.

I do not follow the logic of your arguments at times. On one hand, you advocate the emancipation of your people but on the other hand, you praise a thirsty blood sucker like IBB. The man responsible for most of the economic woes in Nigeria. Would you still love him if I said he was also in Murtala's division? The same division that murdered innocent boys and men at Asaba.

He was not more blood thirsty than Adekunle or Obasanjo in the war. So spare me that holy anger.  

Your need to analyse issues through a tribal prism hinders your ability to analyse issues rationally. You were bent on painting Obasanjo in bad light and in the process, you mis-directed yourself in your analysis. Obasanjo for all his faults will always be better than IBB.

Obasanjo was a rogue who gave away a sovereign territory of Nigeria (Bakassi) to win support for a third term or life term in office. He was almost narcissistic. He was the worst coward ever to lead Nigeria. He couldn't imagine life outside of Aso rock. He empowered criminals to man sensitive positions and loot the treasury while pretending to be fighting corruption. He had all his opponents exiled, jailed or killed.
I would choose IBB over OBJ any day.  

Not to sound too insensitive but IBB is one of the most patriotic Nigerian leaders I know. He was courageous and he was intelligent too.You wouldn't be ashamed to say that is my president. I remember how he used to intimidate visiting foreign leaders in Aso rock. I strongly suspect that he wouldn't have handed over Bakassi to Cameroun.
The guy was too clever to contemplate that idiocy.

He was interested in seeking public opinion everytime, which eventually led to the Option A4 in elections. He created the DMI, NIA,  FIIB, SSS and national guard. Under  this man, Nigeria was strong. He created states according to fairness and his cabinet reflected Nigeria well. He employed technocrats to man sensitive positions. All these would have paid more if he did them under a civilian arrangement.

An IBB, seeing the frequent killings in the north and the niger delta troubles and kidnappings in the east would have allowed state police. The guy is sensible! He may be a dictator in his day, but he listened more than civilian president Obasanjo would saw himself as a god, and introduced do or die elections and enthronement of criminals as political allies.

I can go on, but IBB is a better patriot than Obasanjo! I would trust him to preside over Nigeria's reconstitution through negotiations.  

This guy is making all the right noise these days -true federalism, state police, etc. Hmm, he may get my vote in 2011; afterall he cannot be worse than OBJ. can he?
Another thing about him is that he is swayed by public opinion. That has to count for something.

tensor777:
Just to clarify Nigeria does not need advice from a man like Quadaffi.

A wise man takes good advise even if given by the devil. It becomes a bad advise if you can prove it beyond reasonable doubt. This advise has not been proven bad. On the contrary, our status quo has proved bad for nearly 50 years.