Some bad-tempered operatives of the State Security Service are giving the organisation a bad name. These agents recently stormed the Federal Government Girls’ College, Calabar, Cross River State, over a disciplinary issue concerning a pupil and her teacher. Without justification, they beat up the teachers and confiscated their cell-phones, bags and other personal items. They fired gunshots indiscriminately on the school premises. This is reminiscent of the brutal days of military dictatorship, when goon squads were unaccountable to civil laws. Democracy abhors such irascibility. Therefore, the SSS hierarchy has a duty to lay down the law by punishing those liable.
The mêlée at the FGGC Calabar is a straightforward disciplinary matter. A teacher punished 10 pupils for an infraction, but one of them resisted. Her impudence earned her extra punishment, media reports stated. The matter thereafter escalated when the pupil called her relative, who is an SSS agent in the Cross River State command. Along with other agents, she reportedly stormed the FGGC, firing guns to gain entrance. They physically maltreated and humiliated teachers in front of the pupils.
This is lawlessness by law enforcement officers. It can lead to a total breakdown of discipline in schools; pupils will be reluctant to obey their teachers, seeing that there is another authority that can overrule the standard disciplinary procedures in schools. Confronted with a similar case in 2016, in which a pupil of Eva Adelaja Girls Secondary School was allegedly flogged, the Lagos State Government swung into action immediately, suspending the principal and three teachers. They were recalled after an investigation into the case was completed. This process makes better sense. The SSS agents should have advocated this type of administrative procedure.
Except in the provision of security for the institution, if the need arises, state security agents have no business in the internal disciplinary affairs of a secondary school. The National Security Agencies Act 1986, which established the SSS, is clear about its remit. It is principally to detect and prevent crime “against the internal security of Nigeria;” and “the protection and preservation of all non-military classified matters concerning the internal security of Nigeria.” It is unacceptable, therefore, when SSS officers take the law into their own hands concerning a school matter.
Teachers are not terrorists; they do not carry weapons. So, why should they be hunted down with guns by the SSS? This is gross misconduct and abuse of power, which should attract proper action. In any event, the court is there if the concerned FGGC pupil and her relative felt aggrieved about the incident that snowballed into this shameful drama. Nigeria transited to democratic rule in 1999, yet, security agents still practise brutal methods of law enforcement, which wrongheadedly revels in impunity, harassment of civilians and human rights violations. Unprofessionally, they employ maximum force when it is totally unnecessary. Such acts of misconduct earn stiff sanctions in proper democracies.
Reflexively, the SSS hierarchy is wont to protect intransigent officers. The Cross River State command initially did this. But after a public outcry, the SSS headquarters in Abuja reportedly pulled in some officers for interrogation. Law enforcement is no more about brutality; it now operates on enlightened platform in the industrialised economies. This is even more expected of an intelligence agency which the SSS ought to be. Such personnel thrive on anonymity. In responding to distress, adversarial suspects and violence, security agents still maintain decorum. In Germany, which is facing new threats of neo-Nazism and Islamic terrorism, security agents rarely pull their guns on civilians.
A 2006 survey by the Police Federation of England and Wales found that 82 per cent of the police officers, whose lives were endangered by criminals, did not want to be aggressive to civilians nor carry guns. According to the Home Office, UK, the police fired their guns just twice in 2013. Crucially, this was in adversarial situations, where the lives of officers were clearly imperilled. In Japan, police officers will not even reach for their guns if they get hurt during operations, says Hidehiko Sato, a former commissioner-general of the Asian country’s National Police Agency. When they do, it is only because “they have absolutely no other means.” This is a model worth adopting by the SSS and other security agencies.
Sadly, the phenomenon of brutality is uncontrolled in the ranks of our security agencies. Early in February, two soldiers elicited outrage in Onitsha, Anambra State, after they seized a physically-challenged man. They accused him of wearing military camouflage. Instead of handing him over to the police, they vandalised his wheel- chair, flogged him and dragged him on the road. This is inhuman, though it is heart-warming that the Nigerian Army authorities have charged them with assault. In January, the police in Lagos invaded a food processing firm to quell a workers’ protest. Although the workers were unarmed, the police shot at them, killing one.
The SSS was established for noble purposes: to help the society identify and overcome security issues. Therefore, the Director-General, Lawal Daura, should restore integrity and confidence of the people in the organisation by demilitarising its operations. SSS agents should be conditioned to shun interfering with civil matters, which are outside their brief. Supervising authorities should ensure that officers are recruited under stringent conditions. This, coupled with re-training programmes, will enable them to act professionally and civilly in all situations.
