Perceived as inept, the Nigeria Police Force personnel cut a pitiful picture in the eye of the public. Their deficiencies, including indulgence in arbitrary arrests, torture of suspects and extrajudicial killings, are accentuated by acute underfunding. With cold, incontrovertible figures, the Inspector-General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, vividly reiterated the issue at a recent public hearing at the National Assembly. Therefore, it is absurd to expect that the NPF will excel in the face of the current national security challenges.
Using the 2017 figures to gauge the malaise, it is apparent that insecurity might continue to plague the country. Idris, who is pushing for the promulgation of the Nigeria Police Reform Trust Fund Act to bridge the funding shortfall, told the National Assembly that though the police required N1.13 trillion annually, “only N211 billion was allocated in (the) 2017 budget.” This is a huge disparity, but it has been the noxious trend. What is most worrisome, he says, is that though the budgetary allocations on paper are insufficient to meet the financial needs of the Force, the actual releases are far below what is budgeted. This makes no sense. In concrete terms, the NPF made a capital proposal of N218.8 billion and N56.6 billion for overheads in 2014, but just N7.3 billion and N8.4 billion were appropriated, while N3.4 billion and N5.2 billion were cash-backed.
It is not surprising that crime proliferates in Nigeria. Kidnapping, armed robbery, ritual killings, violence by street gangs (or cults in local parlance), militancy and Islamist insurgency are now the norm rather than exception. Six pupils of the Lagos State Model School, Igbonla, Epe, Lagos State, have been with kidnappers since May. It is a misnomer, but the crime rate cannot decline when the police are grossly underfunded. According to the IG, the police budgeted N200 billion for local travels and transport annually, but a paltry N368 million was all they received in 2016. For investigation, the NPF requires N200 billion, but received just N151 million last year. To build barracks and offices, the police need N700 billion a year; in 2016, N2.3 billion was released. This system is upside down.
Elsewhere, the story of police funding is remarkably different. A 2007-08 report by the British House of Commons Home Affairs Committee entitled “Policing in the 21st Century” said the United Kingdom spent 2.5 per cent of its Gross Domestic Product on the police in 2004; it indeed spent £12.6 billion on the police in 2007/08, according to the Home Office. In the same year, the United States did 2.2 per cent, Spain 1.8 per cent and Germany 1.6 per cent, the report said. Confronted with terrorism, France, which spent 1.4 per cent of its GDP in 2004, agreed to shell out an additional €250 million on the police in October 2016. However, following a series of terror attacks this year in London and Manchester, there is serious pressure on the British government to reverse itself after it slashed £2.3 billion from its police budget between 2010 and 2015.
Essentially, the NPRTF bill is a legal framework that outlines the arrangement for the funding of the police by the three tiers of government. The IG says that it will take police funding to the first line charge in the Federation Account if it becomes law. His optimism that this will be the game-changer might be a little bit ambitious. Already, there are many items in the first line charge, which makes it unwieldy. How many more items can it accommodate?
There are even more grey areas. Although the states have been funding police operations for decades, this is limited to their territories. As highly successful as it is, the operations of the Lagos State Security Trust Fund are restricted to the state; in the event of a state contributing a high percentage when the NPRTF bill becomes law and security deteriorates, how will such a state feel when its resources are being shared out to police commands in other states? In a federal polity, this will cause problems.
We cannot afford to run away from a decentralised policing system forever. Each of the 28 states and seven union territories in India has its own police force. In the United States, policing power is divided among federal, state and local levels. There are about 17,800 police agencies. Swiss police is fragmented into 26 cantonal and around 100 municipal corps. The way out is to decentralise police operations so that states, local government councils and even large universities can establish their own police forces. The 1999 Constitution should be amended fiscally to suit this.
By introspection, the required annual sum of N1.3 trillion is about 17 per cent of the N7.44 trillion 2017 federal budget. It is basic economics that Nigeria cannot allocate this percentage of its income to the police because there are other critical national needs. For instance, the Africa Infrastructure Country Diagnostic 2011 Report estimated that Nigeria required sustained spending of $14.2 billion per annum over the next decade to address its infrastructure challenge. Therefore, police funding has to be more creatively done than the NPRTF proposal.
Many of our communities are under-policed. Yet, Idris, like previous IGs, is failing in the area of managing the 298,735 personnel which he now claims and deems inadequate. With over 100,000 of these officers deployed to guard private individuals and organisations, the formula is creating havoc. When the 155,000 officers he demands are hired, nothing will be achieved if this template remains.
So, ahead of the trust fund law, sensible deployment should be done. The current template is a complete shambles, heavily tilted towards a few. It leaves the majority at the mercy of criminals. The IG should withdraw officers who are acting as errand boys. Without this, it is difficult to determine the required number to be recruited.
