President Muhammadu Buhari’s casual dismissal of the clamour for state police before a global audience confirmed his total disconnection with the demands of modern governance. By hiding under the guise of financial implications for the states and constitutionalism, he failed to situate the dire fiscal and security challenges afflicting the country in the faulty foundation of the union and the imperative of real change. Nigeria, however, will not overcome its crisis of development and security until it undertakes the sensible step of structural reforms.
It was while on his recent state visit to the United States that he once more advertised his narrow worldview. In an interview with the Hausa service of the Voice of America, he voiced strong reservations about the now-popular call for state police in line with the principles of federalism.
He hinged his reservations on two grounds: one, on the provisions of the 1999 Constitution, the other on the poor financial standing of the states. “We must carefully look at the position of the nation’s constitution on the issue of state police before we take final decision on the matter; if the constitution allows state police, so be it. But don’t forget that many times the Federal Government gave out what we referred to as bailout to state governments for payment of workers’ salaries. How many states can pay salaries promptly? And you want to add more financial burden to the states? It is not proper to employ a person, train him in how to handle weapons and then refuse to pay him – you can imagine what would happen in such situation,” he said.
To the uninformed, these sound reasonable but cannot stand scrutiny on closer inspection. Indeed, rather than excuses for denying state policing, they are strong reasons for immediate change to the increasingly odious arrangement of a single national police force in a federation of about 193 million people, over 250 ethnic nationalities grouped into 36 states and 774 local government areas.
The constitution is a man-made document and, like all basic laws anywhere, is subject to amendment if current realities so dictate. Nigeria’s is particularly begging for change being a military-imposed document without the input of the people’s representatives. It is a centralising document that hamstrings the states, rendering them fiscal beggars rather than self-sufficient and productive centres.
Despite the profundity of the principles and debate that produced it, the United States Constitution has been amended 27 times: India’s 1950 Constitution has been amended a staggering 101 times.
Ours needs to be amended urgently to allow state policing immediately. Buhari’s duty is to lend the full weight of his office to the national consensus that has seen Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo and the 36 state governors, as well as principal officers of the National Assembly in support.
It is natural in a federation to have multiple police forces and state police is a natural right, not a favour to be dispensed. The US has 17,985 police agencies, including federal, state, town, county, city and college campus security. The United Kingdom, a unitary state, has 43 regional forces.
The argument of lean finances is groundless, since the raison d’etre of organised society is joint security. The primary duty of the state is to protect life and property. Today, the 36 states, to varying degrees, are heavily funding the federal police. Lagos State spent N15 billion on security in 2016, according to Governor Akinwunmi Ambode and its state security trust fund model has been adopted by Delta, Osun and others. Besides, the states are cash-strapped partly because the constitution vests control over minerals, coastal waters and financial sector regulation exclusively in the centre: thus deprived of fiscal independence, states are forever dependent on allocations from the Federation Account for survival.
The imperative of change has become undeniable, hindered only by the obduracy of successive presidents. Virtually every day, murderers attack villages, farms and commuters in the North-Central states and further South with police and military appearing helpless and in some cases, blatantly partisan. Yet, Buhari, his security chiefs and the government made little headway in fighting Boko Haram terrorists until local vigilantes were incorporated into the campaign.
The President’s solution of recruiting 6,000 new policemen is doubly inept and unimaginative: the fundamental problem of policing in Nigeria is structural and cannot be solved by higher personnel alone; policemen reporting to a distant centre remains disconnected to the locals. Second, LGAs are not federating units, states are; using quotas based on the 774 LGAs entrenches the already lopsided police structure since the councils were manipulated military creations.
Buhari and others who think like him are holding Nigeria back. At this juncture of our national development, Nigeria needs visionaries to take her out of poverty. China’s communist leaders were confronted with mass poverty after the death of Mao Zedong and launched the country on the path of reforms that dragged 500 million people out of poverty in three decades and made it world’s second largest economy. Set adrift as a poor city state in 1965, Lee Yuan Kew remodelled Singapore as an economic miracle.
Nigeria should override the backwardness of its leaders. Since the constitution vests considerable authority in the federal and state legislatures over amendments, they and the state governors should immediately set the machinery in motion to alter the constitution to pave the way for state police. In the meantime, states should strengthen or establish as applicable, vigilante agencies and neighbourhood watch outfits to complement the overwhelmed and under-performing federal police. The vigilantes should be armed with very rigorous oversight. They should be isolated from politics: this is about safeguarding lives and property.
