The Nigerian Police and Our Political Twilight Zone
Introduction
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On Thursday, November 4, 1999, seven policemen were reported murdered in
cold-blood ostensibly by rampaging Egbesu-inspired youths from the Ijaw
community town of Odi in Kolobuma/Opukoma Council of Bayelsa State. The
names of the policemen were [Reference 1]:
1. CSP Thomas Jokotola from Osun State
2. DSP George Nwine from Rivers State
3. St. Emmanuel Bako from Bauchi State
4. CPL Ayuba Silas from Kaduna State
5. PC Shaibu Zamani from Kaduna State
6. CPL Elias Bitrus from Borno State
7. CPL Robinson Obazee from Edo State.
Four days later, this time in Kaiama, Bayelsa State, on Monday night,
November 8, 1999 to be exact, three additional policemen were murdered
again apparently by Odi youths:
1. Sgt. Alhaji Atabor from Kogi State
2. PC Stephen Abu from Cross-Rivers State
3. PC Umoh Ukbo from Cross-Rivers State
On November 10, 1999, an angry President Obasanjo, from far-away Abuja,
fired off a letter to Bayelsa Governor Diepreye Alamieyeseigha giving him
a two-week ultimatum to find the killers or else face a state of emergency
declaration. However on November 19 or thereabout, five full days to the
expiration of the ultimatum, Obasanjo lost patience and ordered soldiers
into Odi. Led by one Lt.-Colonel Agbabiaka (a Yoruba), the apparently
300-strong contingent of soldiers obviously overshot (?) its brief and
levelled the town to the ground except for a church and bank building, and
killed at least 375 people and a larger number of goats and chickens in
the process.
It is instructive to note that none of the policemen killed was from Odi
or Bayelsa State, and one would not be surprised if not one of the
soldiers sent was from anywhere near there.
The questions that we must then ask ourselves are as follows: Would those
ten policemen have been murdered if they had come from Odi town or
environs? Would the soldiers have levelled their own homes if they had
been from Odi?
It is quite possible that they would have, but it is most unlikely.
It is with that premise that I write this Sunday Musings, providing some
historical background as to how we got the way we are with respect to who
controls the Police in a Federated Nigeria, briefly describing the present
situation, and offering some suggestions as to solutions.
Some historical notes on the control of the Police in Nigeria
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The incidence in Odi and the raging battles between the police and the
Odua Peoples Congress (OPC) and Area Boys in Lagos have brought into
greater discussion where the control of the Police in Nigeria should
really be vested, with Lagos Governor Bola Ahmed Adekunle Tinubu leading
the demand for state control and local recruitment of the policemen.
But how did we get to where we are? Serious discussion about who controls
the Police in the putative independent Nigeria began in earnest with the
Willinks Minorities Commission which visited Nigeria from late 1957 to
early 1958 and reported to the September 29 - October 27 1958
Constitutional Conference in London. It is instructive to look at the
history books, beginning with some quotes [Reference 2]:
QUOTE
"In any event, the [WILLINK] Commission concluded that the minorities
could be mad to feel secure without new regions. It recommended
some formal constitutional safeguards to allay fears. Ultimate
control of the police should rest in federal hands, though there
should be consultation with regional officials concerning the use
of the police. The theory was that the risk to minorities came
from regional governments, whereas the Federal government was more
likely to be multitribal and therefore neutral. The Commission also
recommended that the Constitution guarantee certain fundamental human
rights - freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom from
discrimination, and the right to a fair trial, for example. With some
modifications, those recommendations were incorporated into the
Constitution......[THUS] The federal power over the police, for
example, stems directly from the fear of ethnic minorities within
the regions that a police responsible to a regional government
dominated by a particular ethnic or religious group might prove to be
an instrument of repression and political aggrandizement"
UNQUOTE
Is it therefore not ironical that forty-one years later, a minority group
of Ijaws (at least minority relative to the Big Three Hausa/Fulani, Igbo
and Yoruba) becomes the victim of a backlash of their victimization of a
police force that was ostensibly constructed in a manner to protect them?
In fact, at the 106-person 1958 Constitutional Conference at which
decisions which finally featured in the 1960 Constitution were virtually
all settled, the issue of who controls the Police was one of the most
important [Reference 3]:
QUOTE
"On the thorny question of the Police, the Conference decided that
there should be a single police force under an Inspector-General
responsible to the Federal Government. But realising that the
bulk of the force would continue to be stationed in the Regions,
the Conference agreed that each Regional contigent should be under
a [POLICE] Commissioner, who though under the general supervision of
the Inspector-General, would be responsible for recruiting members
of his own contingent as far as practicalbe from within the Region,
thus ensuring that constables posted to an area would be those
who understood the local language.......The administration of the
Force should be the responsibility of a Police Council."
UNQUOTE
Therefore, it is clear that in its wisdom, the 1960 Constitution struck a
delicate balance between allaying the fears of minorities as well as
ensuring that the police in the regions were not completely aliens in
their regions of work, with LANGUAGE being one clear index of such
familiarity or alienation.
Forty years later, what has changed?
First was the creation of more states - 3 regions in 1951 till 1960
(North, East and West at Independence) became 4 in 1963 (with creation of
MidWest), and then 12 states in 1967 (under Gowon, just before the
secession of Biafra), 19 in 1976 (under Murtala Muhammed/Obasanjo), to 21
(in 1987) and then 30 in 1991 (both under Babangida; who catapulted the
number of local governments to 589) and finally to 36 in 1996 (under
Abacha). Next was the creation of more local governments - from roughly
40 provinces in 1960 to 301 in 1979 to 774 in 2000.
With this proliferation of states and local governments came a
concomittant greater ethnic homogeneity in each administrative unit. Is
this "minorities" fear of repression therefore still relevant today if
local governments or states now assumed or even shared control of the
police with the Federal government?
The other thing that changed of course happened on January 15, 1966, when
the military took over governance of the country and because of its
inherently unitary command structure, destroyed the delicate federal
constitution which had been negotiated prior to independence. No longer
was the police force the dominant civil force, but rather the Army, Navy
and Airforce, relegating the police force to playing catch-up ever since.
While the Ironsi/Gowon regimes maintained a semblance of regionalism by
deploying military state governors to their own regions of origin, the
Murtala Mohammed/Obasanjo regime, in its missionary zeal to "homogenize"
the country, in general deployed state governors far away from their
states of origin, resulting, in some quarters, in feelings of internal
colonization. This same over-centralized, homogenizing, internal
colonization was extended to the Police Force, and concretized in the 1979
Constitution handed over by Obasanjo to the country, wherein in Sections
194 - 196, we have the following:
QUOTE
Chapter VI, Part III
B. The Nigeria Police Force
Establishment of Nigeria Police Force
194 (1) There shall be a police force for Nigeria, which shall be styled
the Nigeria Police Force, and subject to the provision of this
section no other police force shall be established for the
Federation or any part thereof.
(2) Subject to the provisions of this Constitution -
(a) the Nigeria Police Force shall be organised and administered
in accordance with such provisions as may be prescribed by an
Act of the National Assembly;
(b) the members of the Nigeria Police Force shall have such
powers as may be conferred upon them by law;
(c) the National Assembly may make provisions for branches of
the Nigeria Police Force forming part of the armed forces of the
Federation or for the protection of harbours, waterways, railways
and airfields.
195 (1) There shall be an Inspector-General of Police who, subjected to
section 196(2) of this Constitution, shall be appointed by the
President, and a Commissioner of Police for each State, who
shall be appointed by the Police Service Commission.
(2) The Nigeria Police Force shall be under the command of the
Inspector-General of Police, and any contingents of the Nigeria
Police Force stationed in a State shall, subject to the authority
of the Inspector-General of Police, be under the command of the
Commissioner of Police of that State.
(3) The President or such other Minister of the Government of the
Federation as he may authorise in that behalf may give to the
Inspector-General of Police such lawful directions with respect
to the maintenance and securing of public safety and public
order as he may consider necessary, and the Inspector-General
of Police shall comply with those directions or cause them to
be complied with.
(4) Subject to the provisions of this section, the Governor of a
State or such Commissioner of the Government of the State as
he may authorise in that behalf, may give to the Commissioner
of Police of that State such lawful directions with respect
to the maintenance and securing of public safety and public
order within the State as he may consider necessary, and the
Commissioner of Police shall comply with those directions or
cause them to be complied with:
Provided that before carrying out any such directions
under foregoing provisions of this subsection the Commissioner
of Police may request that the matter be referred to the
President or such Minister of the Government of the Federation
as may be authorised in that behalf by the President for
his directions.
(5) The question whether any, and if so what, directions have been
given under this section shall not be enquired into in any
court.
196 (1) Subject to the provisions of this Constitution, the Police
Service Commission may, with the approval of the President and
subject to such conditions as it may think fit, delegate any of
the powers conferred upon it by this Constitution to any of its
members or to the Inspector-General of Police or any other member
of the Nigeria Police Force.
(2) Before making any appointment to the office of the
Inspector-General of Police or removing him from office, the
President shall consult the Police Service Commission.
UNQUOTE
Inspection of these sections of the 1979 Constitution with the similar
sections 214-216 of the 1999 Constitution inherited from the
Abacha/Abubakar military regimes will show that they are identical in all
respects except for the establishment of a Nigeria Police Council to vet
the approval and removal of the IG (rather than a Police Commission which
is still retained with respect of State Police Commissioners.)
Not only is complete bypassing of oversight in the approval and removal of
the I-G and Police Commissioners by National and state assemblies in
preference for presidential power odious, nor the ouster clause section
195(5) (which carries over to Section 215(5) of the 1999 Constitution), in
practice, the proviso of section 195(4) completely negates the implied
oversight by the state Governor of the earlier paragraph, and must have
been put there to emasculate (or castrate) him or her. It should also be
noted that the 1979 and 1999 Constitutions, unlike the 1960 one, were
silent on the recruitment and placement of members of the Police force
vis-a-vis their ethnic origins (however, it does not outlaw such a
consideration), resulting in outrageous political usage of the Police by
president Shagari during his tenure (eg with respect to the deportation of
Shugaba in 1990 and the elections in 1983), as well as by General Abacha
later on.
In fact, in 1996 under Abacha, the following distribution of the hierarchy
of the Police Force was extant [ Reference 4 ]:
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Police Departments
Department AIG (in charge) State of Origin
A (Administration) Sani Daura Katsina
B (Operations) Bappa Jama'are Bauchi
C (Works) Usman Daura Katsina
D (Investigations) Mohammed Abubakar Bauchi
E (Special Branch) Zakari Malherbe North
F (Research and Mangt) Rachael Iyamabo Edo
Zone HQUarters Commander State of Origin
1 Kano Musiliu A.K. Smith Lagos
2 Lagos A.H. Ali-Jos Kano
3. Yola Y. Ojibara Kogi
4. Makurdi Inusa Isa Borno
5. Benin Bukar Alli Borno
6. Calabar Liman Shettima Borno
7. Abuja Dabo Aliu Katsina
8. Lokoja A. Kaltungo Bauchi
State Police Commissioner Region of Origin
Abia Osanetin Bakara North
Adamawa Shehu Damali North
Akwa Ibom Benson Otu South
Anambra Sakare Aliu North
Bauchi H. Amadu North
Benue A.U. Mairamri North
Borno Olusegun Kasim South
Cross-River Olatunbosun Amusan South(West)
Delta M. Everson South
Edo Amusa Isa North
Enugu Albert Imaguezegie South
Imo I.D. Lokadaing North
Jigawa Seidu Alihu North
Kaduna Yakubu Shuaibu North
Kano L. Mashichi North
Katsina Bello Labaran North
Kebbi Rilwanu Akinola South(West)
Kogi Ayodele Adeyemi South(West)
Kwara Danda Gololo North
Lagos Abubakar Tsav North
Niger A.J. Peter North
Ogun D. Auta North
Ondo B. Tawani North
Osun Sunday Aghedo South
Oyo James Danbaba North
Plateau Linus Nwaozomudoli South(East)
Rivers M. Alkali North
Sokoto Gimba Umar North
Taraba Haman Misau North
Yobe Ahmed Muhammed North
F.C. Territory Mustapha Ismaila North
22 North, 9 South
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The Present-Day Situation
-------------------------
The above information speaks for itself. One wonders how much the
internal colonization has changed under the new civilian regime of General
Olusegun Obasanjo.
The other day, a fellow indicated that in Nigeria right now, we are in a
"democracy". My hiss quickly turned to spit, as I reminded him that
within three months, we have had the razing of Odi, a shoot-at-sight order
at OPC, rude letters to two state governors as if they were the
president's "boy-boys", the arrest of journalists and the burning down of
a house by the police in search of OPC's Ganiu Adams.
Is that a democracy or what? No. What we have is a post-military,
pre-democracy transition period that we are in, a sort of political
twilight zone. Nothing indicates that zone more than the inadequacies of
our police force.
Let me confess that I am not a fan of Ganiu Adams. However, if I were he,
I would NEVER turn myself in to ANY NIGERIAN POLICE on account of
suspicion of hurting police officers. He can be assured that in custody,
the Police will tear him one ear, one finger at a time, and there will
SEVERAL Nigerians who will maliciously applaud that grievous outcome, and
would ask whether Adam's was expecting Nicon-Hilton treatment. Many of us
still operate in an unprincipled undemocratic twilight of guilty until
proven innocent, I am afraid.
Why do I not trust the Police? For one, Musiliu Smith of Olowogbowo, the
current Inspector-General of Police, was Police Commissioner of Kano State
under the Abacha regime. That is not very comforting, although one would
admit not disqualifying. Secondly, we have all read the chilling accounts
of Sergeant Rogers and how the military AND the police in Nigeria were
used to hunt down the enemies of Abacha. On one occasion, the Lagos
Commissioner of Police James Danbaba under Lagos governor Marwa - Danbaba
was commissioner in Oyo State in 1996, as the above list shows - himself
was instructed to distract away the police under him so that Rogers and
co. could BOMB The Guardian Newspaper's Rutam House. The Police in Lagos
were checking rifles and pistols and bombs in and checking out of police
stations to do all kinds of dastardly acts all around the country. How can
we be sure that there are not many more policemen left like Danbaba
stirring things up in Ketu and Badagry and Odi? Can anyone convince us
that all the police suddenly saw religion when Abacha died?
Not at all!
Yet, out of the collective malice that people seem to bear against the
OPC, we forget such fears, and also choose to COMPLETELY forget the voices
of the communities in which OPC live. None of them has EVER blamed OPC
for any crimes against them. Rather, it has been that OPC members, in the
absence of Nigerian Police, helped them solve their criminal problems by
engaging the robbers and miscellaneous area boys.
Nigerians have never trusted either the efficiency or the honesty of the
Police, but UNDER THE ABACHA REGIME, that lack of trust became HEIGHTENED
to an extent that at least in the SouthWest - where the Police was used
with a vengeance, community VIGILANTES like OPC became a must that had to
be turned to. During the Abacha regime, one did not hear much about OPC
because the Police was too busy chasing Abacha's enemies, while the OPC
was too busy consolidating its own political agenda, little by little
endearing itself to its local communities, all the while preparing for
Abacha's self-succession, which would have been hell-on-Earth for Abacha
courtesy OPC at least in Yorubaland.
Don't we ask yourselves: where was the Police when the OPC became
numbered in hundreds and thousands and millions of peoples? Where they
sleeping? But suddenly, Abacha dies, and the Police are ALIVE to their
original responsibilities
But there is not enough of them to go around. Let us look at some
numbers:
-------------
Population of Nigeria 100 x 10^6 people
Population of Lagos State 10 x 10^6 people
UN recommendation for police 400 persons / policeman
UN recommendation for Nigeria 250,000
UN recommendation for Lagos 25,000
Total number of Armed Forces 75,000
Total number of police Less than 75,000
(official tally is unknown to me)
Number of states + Abuja 37
Avg. number of police/state Less than about 2,000,
--------
What that means is that on average, based on UN recommendations, Lagos
State might be undermanned by an order of magnitude, and that even if ALL
the soldiers became policemen tomorrow, the state will still need six
times more policemen to meet UN recommendations.
So it was clear why OPC would not just fade away after Abacha's demise,
because there is still crime in the communities, and they are still
helping to rid of crime! The Police now say "We are in charge!" and OPC
says, "For where? Are there enough of you to secure our communities?"
Tory jam tory, and there is collateral damage in the community as Police
jam OPC. Instead of arresting the actual criminals, it is easier to arrest
the arresters - the OPC - because there is a pre-disposition with the
powers-that-be to demonize OPC! Of course, people in the communities do
not like the collateral damage - I don't - and would prefer the Police to
be left to do their work and do it well, while OPC carry on its political
agenda. But until then nko?
Listen to Danbaba/Aghedo replacement Lagos Police Commissioner Okiro: "We
have drafted more police to Lagos to deal with OPC!" Should it be to deal
with OPC or to deal with criminals in general? Has Okiro not met with OPC
THOUSANDS of times before now? Now suddenly he is talking tough about
OPC, because that is what the powers-that-be want to hear.
The Suggested Solution
----------------------
So if I were President Obasanjo, what would I do?
A) Converse with some stakeholders
I would get ALL the state governors and their deputies, the Inspector
General of Police, the State Police Commissioners, the Minister for
Internal Affairs, the Police Affairs Minister, the Minister of Defence -
every last one of them into a room, and work out a "Modus Vivendi" in
terms of line of authority as far as security is concerned.
Despite what the Constitution says about the line of authority for police
affairs, it does not STOP the President from completely DELEGATING quite a
lot of his Police authority to the governors in a manner consistent with
security efficiency. If the Governor is the Chief Security Officer of his
State, and Obasanjo is Chief Security Officer of the Nation, then Obasanjo
himself should since 1979 be wise enough to know that the present system
is anachronistic. Obasanjo should simply say, "Listen, IG and Police
Commissioners, I know what this Constitution says. But I delegate my
authority in this area to the Governor of the State, who should meet with
his Police Commissioner regularly. The Commissioners should meet with the
IG regularly. Every quarter (or six months), I want to meet with you all
to see how it is working out. Don't call me UNTIL it is ABSOLUTELY
necessary, and only after you can convince me that the Governor and
yourselves cannot work it out."
Can President Obasanjo depose his military instincts and be this humble?
That is what inquiring minds will like to know.
B) Address WITH SPEED AND ALACRITY the under-manning and poor resource
funding of the Police AS A MATTER OF PRIORITY.
(i) First start with the numbers of Policemen that you have. Weed out ANY
that has been implicated with violent acts or egregious corruption. Spruce
up the police uniform so that the police look like decent human beings.
Let them be well-fed them so that they don't look so hungry all the time.
Increase their salaries and make any hints of corruption a severely
punishable offence.
(ii) Next, divide the police control between local government, state
government and Federal police, all with Federal oversight if desired, and
yield control substantially. Rather than have 100% Federal, if you don't
want 100% state, then let's have 20%-30%-50% local-state-Federal, or even
40-30-30 to assure people. Let as many of these policemen come from their
states of origin as much as possible, as in the 1960 Constitution, even
those under Federal control. Have community policing liaise with
accredited neighborhood watches; some of the OPC might even volunteer!
(iii) Next give them cruiser cars and walkie-talkies so that the range of
territory of protection can be wider. Next concentrate them a little bit
more where there is strongest crime.
(iv) Finally, begin to recruit more police with higher educational entry
standards, constantly aiming towards the UN number times divided by five,
then by four or three, etc, but certainly higher than the present number.
Epilogue
--------
If President Obasanjo continues with a CENTRALIST, AUTHORITARIAN attitude,
then after he is gone as President in four or eight years, he will again
see the country UNRAVEL before his own eyes. It will be another terrible
legacy he would have left behind for a second time.
In conclusion, we are not OPERATING a democracy yet. The country is sick,
not in body, but in soul. We have got to TALK about the FUNDAMENTAL
re-structuring of the country, since the Police, OPC, Egbesu, etc. are
simply symptoms of a larger problem. That is why we need a Sovereign
National Conference. This sickness is not going away in a hurry. It
cannot be wished or decreed away. This is a pre-democratic, post-military
transition. We are in a political twilight zone. We will begin to
operate a Federal democracy if we have devolution of power, independent
judiciary, free press, a respectable Police force with clear lines of
authority and power and so on. Then we will be quicker able to better the
lives of people. It is not as if even now we cannot better peoples'
lives, it is just that in the present way we are going, that will be
excruciatingly slow.
And the people can get quite angry.
January 23, 2000
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References:
[1] TELL Magazine, November 22, 1999, pages 18 and 19, Text of Press
Conference by Vice-President Abubakar Atiku at Abuja on November 9,
1999
[2] "Nigeria: The Tribes, the Nation, or The Race", F.A.O. Schwarz, Jr,
1965, The MIT Press.
[3] "Nigeria: Yesterday, Today and ?", James O. Ojiako, 1981, African
Educational Publishers (Nig.) Ltd, Onitsha, Nigeria
[4] "Nigerians As Outsiders: Military Dictatorship and Nigeria's Destiny",
Arthur Nwankwo, 1996, Fourth Dimension Publishing Co, Enugu
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