Dr. Primus Emenuga is the Director, Institute of Criminal Justice and Criminology Administration (ICJCA), Lagos. In a chat with OMIKO AWA, he talked about the importance of security, the need to amend the Constitution to reflect current realities, among other issues.

You talked about the Nigerian justice system not being fair, how can the system be corrected?
These abnormalities are right in our Constitution, which is due for amendment. If in the true sense of it, we are practising democracy and federalism, we should then allow our innate rights to prevail. One of the backbones of democracy is the fundamental human rights and once they are not accorded the necessary backups, as they should, in terms of getting justice when one’s right is abridged, then the system is said to have failed. I believe that the right of every man must be preserved. The right of fair hearing must not be withheld or else there is no justice. When Mr. A commits a crime and you give him a soft-landing because he is from a certain part of the country and Mr. B commits the same crime and you judge him with the intention to deal with him because he is from a different part of the country, then you are not fair in the system. We are calling for fair treatment for all Nigerians, irrespective of your religion or ethnicity.

Your are talking about combating insecurity in the country, what do you aim to achieve with this?
One of the things we hope to achieve with our national security conference, investiture and award ceremony is to create more awareness on the security challenges in the country. It is to further stress the import of security and to make people know that issues pertaining to security should be the concern of all Nigerians and should not be left with a few people.

Security at the grassroots is usually not strong, how can this be corrected?
The truth is, we have to return to the period when the traditional rulers were in full control of their domains. Mr. President resides in Abuja and does not know what is happening in a village in Ekiti State, because he is not a magician. The Inspector General of Police or the Commandant of Civil Defence are all in Abuja and use their officers to know what is happening in the states, but if the traditional rulers are empowered to control crime in their domains, the job will be easier for the officers coming from Abuja to the state.

It was because of the deficiency in the present system that people are agitating for state police. But the truth is, if you empower traditional rulers there will be no need for state police.

The traditional rulers have their ways of fishing out criminals in their domains; they have their law enforcers and a system to find out the truth. People are clamoring for state police because the present structure is faulty and with proper structure the clamour will be over.

What is the best way to curb crime in the country?
There is no single best way to do this. As far as there are human beings crime will continue to happen, so, we can only prevent or reduce the rate of occurrence. But government on its own part should provide jobs for the youths to avoid being recruited into crime, just as the saying goes, ‘an idle hand is the devil’s workshop.’ The current rise of crime could be associated to unemployed and if nothing is done quickly, the rate will be higher than what we are currently experiencing.

Are Nigerians really security conscious people?
Many of us are not, from the way we do things and even engage personal staff. Some organisations do not have the profile of their workers, all what they know is to engage anybody they can pay. Many do not know that their lives, apart from being in God’s hand, lie with their security guards. Some people flaunt their wealth on the social media, announce their achievements, even travels without knowing they are exposing themselves to danger; feeding criminals with information to attack them.
Our failure to recognise security as an important aspect of our lives is what we are seeing of the various crimes committed in our neighbourhoods.