Dear President Tinubu: Just do it

Our dear President Tinubu, I mean no disrespect by writing a letter to you through this public medium. I do so to easily draw your attention to the subject under discussion, since I am told that you are an avid reader of newspapers.

When you were sworn in as the President of Nigeria on May 29, last year, you said that you would put the security of the country on the front burner. You said: “we shall invest more in our security personnel and this means more than an increase in number. We shall provide better training, equipment, pay and fire power.”

I have no idea how much of those promises you have been able to accomplish but it is obvious that insecurity is still a serious problem for your government, the same way it was for your predecessors. Your immediate predecessor, President Muhammadu Buhari, went through hell in those eight years that he ran the affairs of Nigeria.

According to data from the Nigeria Security Tracker (NST), a project of the Council on Foreign Relations Africa Programme, about 63, 111 Nigerians were slaughtered during his reign by terrorists, bandits, kidnappers, cultists, herdsmen, armed robbers. These murderers chose soft targets such as schools, churches, mosques, farms, airports, buses, trains, highways etc.

These murderers have continued with their nefarious activities since your inauguration. The recent carnage in three local government councils in Plateau State must have shocked you. Almost every week, there are kidnappings and killings in various parts of the country and Nigerians are therefore living in a state of fear, whether they are at home or in the streets or in churches or mosques or in schools. Nowhere in Nigeria is truly safe.

You have travelled recently to various parts of the world trying to market the immense potentials of our country to potential investors. These are commendable efforts aimed at resetting our damaged economy and improving the living standard of Nigerians. But these efforts will yield very little positive results if you are not able to stem the conflagration that comes from insecurity.

No sensible investor will bring his money to a country where the security situation is dire. And that is the point where Nigeria, or a good part of it, is right now. Some of the Chibok Secondary School girls kidnapped more than nine years ago are still in captivity. Some NYSC fellows kidnapped in Zamfara State on their way to their stations in Sokoto are still in the kidnappers’ dungeon today. No one knows when they will be set free.

We all know that since the onset of this Fourth Republic, insecurity has been our companion. For instance, the Plateau State crisis started in 2004, which led to the declaration of a state of emergency in that state. It is still there. The Boko Haram crisis started in 2009. It is still there in the North East. The herders/farmers crisis in the North Central zone has been there for the past decade. It is still hanging fire today. The Biafra brouhaha in the South East has led to a number of deaths and loss of money through the sit-at-home philosophy of the Biafran protagonists. There is no end in sight.

Nigerians have made a number of suggestions on how to solve the insecurity problem. Some people think that we should bring some mercenaries into the fray. Mercenaries work only for money and have no commitment to the country. Their commitment is only to money. This idea has been shot down because it is a very unsafe proposition. If the mercenaries have full knowledge of the lay of the land, they can be hired in future by Nigeria’s enemies to attack Nigeria.

President Buhari thought that community policing was the answer. But his idea of community policing was simply to recruit more policemen for the Nigeria Police Force and get them posted to their states of origin or even their local governments. The operational headquarters remained Abuja. The Commissioners of Police continued to take orders only from the Inspector General of Police, while the Governors remained toothless bulldogs who carried the titular title of Chief Security Officers of their states. The arrangement failed fabulously.

Now, a number of people including some frustrated state governors are asking for all Nigerians to be allowed to carry arms. This is a suggestion made out of pure desperation and frustration arising from the growing scale of insurgency. For several reasons I think it is a dangerous proposition, which should not be entertained. The reckless and indiscriminate shooting of people in churches, schools and beaches in America should be a lesson to us. I will devote attention to this in a subsequent column.

The National Conference of 2014 recommended the creation of State Police but the APC government that took over in 2015 did not show any interest in any of the over 600 recommendations made by that conference. Interestingly, the APC under Buhari set up the Nasir El-Rufai Committee that visited all the six geo-political zones, received memoranda from and interviewed hundreds of people. It recommended restructuring as well as State Police.

Buhari being a hegemonist refused to implement it. His excuse was that state governments would have no money with which to set up State Police because the Federal Government was the one bailing some of the state governments out of their impecuniosity. That is not the whole truth. The other unspoken truth is that all the state governments are spending a lot of money to provide equipment and financial support to the Nigeria Police Force serving in their states.

Besides, a number of state governments have one form of security outfit or the other. At least 24 state governments have these security outfits operating in their states. The states are: Kaduna, Sokoto, Kano, Katsina, Cross River, Enugu, Taraba, Adamawa, Ondo, Anambra, Ebonyi, Edo, Nasarawa, Plateau, Niger, Bauchi, Abia, Akwa Ibom, Zamfara, Borno, Yobe, Rivers, Osun, Benue.

The only difference is that the personnel in these outfits are not permitted to carry sophisticated arms as the terrorists do. The fact that these security outfits are allowed to operate at all, albeit in a limited form, means that there is a security gap that needs to be filled and which if filled can substantially improve the country’s security.

Second, there are two regional security outfits in the country today, Amotekun in the South West and Ebube Agu in the South East. These two security outfits also operate with limited equipment. They are also not allowed to carry sophisticated arms, which the terrorists wield. So, sir, it is obvious from the spate of killings in various places in the country that we need a State Police, which will operate in the nooks and crannies of Nigeria where a lot of these crimes take place.

If all the states establish State Police, they will add a substantial number to the quantity of policemen available for service. Also, the number and quality of equipment will improve; intelligence gathering, especially in the rural communities will improve because the policemen will understand the culture and language of the communities where they operate; the operational headquarters will be near to them while the governors will feel that they are truly Chief Security Officers of their states in name and in fact.

Some opponents of State Police think that the governors may not have the resources to equip the police efficiently. This is untrue because at present, all of them spend a lot of money to support the NPF. Besides, I believe that saddling them with a direct security responsibility will make them to spend their security vote more prudently. Each of the states can also establish a security support fund, to which contractors and their citizens in Nigeria and in the Diaspora can contribute.

The other argument against State Police is that governors might use it to oppress political opponents. This is a democracy. If that happens the victims can take the matter to court, in defence of their human rights. A number of civil society organisations today are very vocal in the defence of people’s rights. If people are unjustly treated, I believe these civil society groups can organise demonstrations in opposition to such ill treatment as they have done on several issues in the last two decades.

Sir, you are a known federalist and Nigeria ought to run its affairs like other federations such as United States, Canada, Australia and Germany to mention but a few. Each of them runs multiple police systems, which have helped them to cope substantially with their security challenges. Nigeria has no business running its affairs in this unitary fashion, which has amputated the country, a country that has enormous potentials.

Sir, most of our security personnel, whether policemen or armed forces personnel are largely urban-based. Most of our rural communities are not effectively served by our security forces. I come from a Local Government Area called Ukanafun in Akwa Ibom State. The LGA has 87 villages and only one police station with about 50 policemen. How can 50 policemen serve 87 villages? That is the situation in most states of the Federation.

That is why you should please work with the National Assembly to amend the Constitution so that State Police can be a reality. That is how you can effectively solve the problem of insecurity in the country. All your predecessors scoffed at the idea of State Police. And were they able to tame the dragon of insecurity? No. For you to succeed in the security sector you must act differently: Embrace State Police.