Time for a new beginning

The consequences of befuddled thinking flowing from parochial interests and not for the general welfare of all, are staring all in the face. The country is in a choke –hold of anguish, uncertainties and disillusionment. I am continuing my reflection on the state of insecurity in the land. Since the last one week the subject was again brought to the front burner in these pages, the land has witnessed many bitter and distressing occurrences.

Two traditional rulers in Ekiti State were abducted, victims of what the media has now dubbed as kidnapping epidemic ravaging the land. The third in the company escaped by the whiskers only. And before help could reach the two in captivity, they had been killed in what might pass as a cultural abomination! The three monarchs were returning from an event in Kogi State when they ran into armed bandits at Ikole Local Government Area. Five men that police alleged have been menacing certain areas of Ekiti State were arrested with combined efforts of the police, Amotekun, OPC and hunters.

But that was not the only troubling piece of news coming from Ekiti. School children numbering 25, and two teachers who were being conveyed home in their school bus after closing hours, were waylaid by gunmen just about five minutes drive from their school. The men demobilised the vehicle by shooting its tyre, and ordered the pupils to disembark and lie face down. They picked five of them and asked the others to go. Altogether, the gunmen went with the remaining pupils, two teachers, the driver and the bus assistant. To free the children, their abductors are demanding N100 million as ransom.

The distressing reports included kidnappers attacking police and taking over their checkpoint in Edo. Four feared killed in gunmen’s attack on Point of Sales (POS) operators in Imo. Also in Imo, armed men reportedly killed four persons, two of them policemen—all between last week Monday and today. A lawyer was said to have been kidnapped from his house in Abuja with his abductors asking for N50 million as ransom. Kidnappers threatened to kill a doctor in Kaduna, her husband and a 16-year-old if their family fails to pay N100 million ransom they are demanding without further delay.

Gunmen abducted two brothers in Anambra State. After killing them, they dumped their bodies in a car. Such has been the situation that a coalition of Civil Societies (CSOs) under the auspices of Civil Society Action group telling a Press conference on Monday that in about eight months ending on January 26, that is last week Friday, 2, 423 were killed and 1, 872 persons kidnapped.

In President Buhari’s second term (2019 to 2023) no fewer than 24, 816 Nigerians lost their lives, and 15, 507 were recorded kidnapped. As of 24 January, 2022, the number of people who had been killed in the country had surged by 47 per cent up from 10, 366 in 2021 according to BusinessDay quoting data by an intelligence organisation called SBM Intelligence.

It is not as if the security agencies are not doing anything about the grim situation. Troops killed Zamfara terrorist leader and set free 20 victims in his camp. His accomplices fled. Troops of Operation Hadarin separately rescued two persons seized by terrorists travelling on Shinkafi road also in Zamfara State. On 27 January, a Joint Task Force code-named North-West operation Hadarin Daji set free 35 persons who had been in captivity of kidnappers, this time in Katsina State, a major kidnapping flash point in the North-West. As of October last year, Zamfara, Kaduna and Niger states topped the chart of places kidnapping occurred.

The spate of kidnappings has been so alarming that hardly are thoughts spared any longer for internally displaced people, (IDPs), victims directly resulting from purely sectarian conflict foisted on the country by Boko Haram insurgents in 2009. As of June last year, 2023, the population of IDPs was 2, 295, 534, down from 3.6 million in 2022 according to Internal Displacement Centre (iDMC). In 2021, the total was 2.2 million (531 women, 423,000 men, 677, 000 girls and 569, 000 boys), according to UN Refugee Agency figures. Over 74 per cent of the displaced people are in Borno State, the centre of the conflict, followed by Adamawa that has 221, 253 IDPs as the second highest and then Yobe with 151, 874.

Most of the rescue operations were through combined efforts of joint task forces, also featuring vigilante outfits. Where they were not set up directly by state governments, they recognised them. Former Governor Akinwumi Ambode, for example, recruited 5, 700 youths in 2017 under Lagos Neighbourhood Safety Corps initiative. He did say at the time that “the move is another step towards enhancing security at the grassroots level in the state.”

The corps’ brief was that they should assist the police by providing useful intelligence for crime prevention and to facilitate the arrest of perpetrators of crime. In August 2016, barely two years into Ambode’s administration, the state Security Trust Fund (LSSTF) gathered N1billion in donations at a dinner organised by the Fund and corporate organisations. Such was the success of the Lagos project the fund was able to give Lagos State police command two helicopters, 300 patrol vehicles among which were mobile workshop vehicles and 60 patrol motorcycles.

Also provided to the police by Lagos State Government were two million rounds of ammunition, five fibre boats fitted with double 75 HP Outbound Engines; 30 armoured personnel carriers (APCs) and 1, 000 AK-47. The Lagos model started by Babatunde Fashola was endorsed by the United Nations Congress on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice. I was to report in this column that so successful was the Lagos model that some of the states in the country asked for guidance on how they could simulate the model.

Kano State with Ibrahim Idris as police commissioner was one of the states that sought to learn from Lagos. Idris who was later to become the Inspector-General of Police said at the time: “We had to travel to Lagos to understudy the Security Trust Fund. It has served as a model for the states in the Federation. Ambode went all out to arrange what he called “proper care of welfare of police officers who are assigned to Lagos.”

Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu is upscaling this and only a couple of weeks ago, public-spirited businessman Femi Otedola donated N1billion to Lagos Trust Fund. Apparently following reports on Lagos, Kano State Government gave Idris 25 patrol vehicles and facilitated the recruitment of 2,000 youths into a peace corps. The plan was to have 6,000 of them and the 2,000 were the first set. The government paid N83 million for their application forms and training. The form was N3 million and the training N80 million. The government provided office space and accommodation. Although the police authorities in Abuja ordered their immediate closure, the message of the state governor is clear: The desire to have state police. The attitude of the Federal authorities did not vitiate the Kano State government’s felt need for a state police formation of their own.

In Nasir el Rufai’s Kaduna, the said Peace Corps numbered 4, 363 youths, 1,060 of them females. The Senate bill to legalise them was turned down by President Buhari. El Rufai then went to establish Kaduna State Vigilance Service Committee to replace several self-help groups in existence in the state.

When we add these efforts to the pressure from the Nigerian Governors Forum, led by Abdullaziz Yari and later by Dr. Kayode Fayemi; the Southern Governors’ Forum led by the late Rotimi Akeredolu and individual governors such as Jona Jang and Henry Dickson, and of course, former President Ibrahim Babangida, and the solid backing of Professor Yemi Osinbajo, there is no iota of doubt that the states have been yearning to take control of the security destiny of their states in their own hands.

Anambra, indeed, passed a Bill, Anambra State Vigilance Service Act No. 9 of 2,000, signed into law on 06 December 2006, becoming the first state to arm a vigilante group officially and which is publicly funded and paid salaries. Abia followed suit with its own called Abia Vigilance Service. Imo did the same, so also Ebonyi State. Imo called its own Imo Vigilance Service. Ebonyi House of Assembly passed its own bill as well establishing Ebonyi Vigilance Service. And so you ask: What is left? Governor Seyi Makinde of Oyo State, also an advocate of state police, provided the answer. “I disagreed at that particular time and still disagree to date that the states are not in the position to maintain state police. I have never seen where the Federal Government went to a particular state and gave the police everything they needed. So, the states are already maintaining the police.” He was referring to the time the governors of South West met Buhari when he was President for approval to set up state police in the face of the state of insecurity bedeviling the country. When he declined their entreaty, they got back to the Zone to consider the desirability of establishing Amotekun. They got their respective states to enact laws establishing the security outfit.

Who can say with all this the states are not seeing the establishment of state police as the panacea to the prevailing state of insecurity across the land. Makinde said the establishment of state police is an idea whose time has come. State police has become imperative to surmount the insecurity challenges facing different parts of the country, he said. It is even more so as it is inherent in the tenets and principle of federalism. Since we choose Federalism, why are we reluctant to embrace a crucial aspect of it that is the foundation for peace and national stability without which there can be no meaningful economic development in any land? Economic activities cannot flourish and citizens unfold their full potentials in a state of chaos and confusion.

As I was saying last week, in Belgium, Police Communale is made up of 589 Municipal Police Forces, each independently funded by the local Mayor to whom it is accountable and with powers to operate only within its particular municipal authority. Gendarmerie Nationale is national, operating at what we may call a supra level covering the entire country. In Holland there are 148 such municipal forces. Denmark and Norway have police forces which although are decentralised, are autonomous because the districts are independent. The districts are supervised by the District Police Chiefs. There are altogether 54 police formations, the same number as in Norway. In Germany there are 16 State Police Forces each independent of the other in management and funding. The country also has Federal Law Enforcement Agencies. In the United Kingdom, there are 45 “territorial” forces and three “special” police forces.

Australia represents a classic case of a Federal Police. Australia Federal Police is funded directly and wholly by the Federal Government with its leadership responsible to the Minister in charge of law enforcement for the country. There are eight state police forces each managed and financed by its own state. In the United States there are several tiers of policing. They are spread with the states and local councils each having its independent law enforcer, the police; and then Federal (FBI and CIA); ports, transport and railways. Universities with a student population of 5, 000 have their own independent police force.

I have gone this far to demonstrate that we are not reinventing the wheel by setting up more tiers of policing in the land. It is what every country in a Federal arrangement does and attracts flourish. After all, the Western Region in the First Republic had three tiers of policing: federal called lovingly as Olopa Eko, smartly attired, efficient, respectable and respected; Regional Police with headquarters at Iyaganku and training college at Eleiyele; and Native Authority police. Formal and modern policing was first established in Abeokuta in 1905 by Egba United Government. This was replicated at Ibadan in 1906, and Oyo the following year and then Ondo Province and so on.

When the National Assembly resumed from their Christmas and New Year recess on Tuesday, security issue was top on their agenda, rightly so. House of Representatives Speaker Tajudeen Abass expressed serious concern over the pervading insecurity ravaging the land. He ingrained it in the legislative thinking of his colleagues in the House saying: “It is a stark reminder that the conventional approaches to security we have espoused for so long are no longer sufficient. The time has come to think out of the box and adopt new and contemporary strategies that better respond to the complexities of our current challenges. ..The enemy evolves, and so must we. I challenge you to rise to the occasion.”

There is a lot of literature that can help them in their deliberations, such as the 2014 National Conference Report and Nasir el-Rufai report, Resolutions of Governors’ Forum. The report of the Senate Summit on Security that was held in 2018 at which the then Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo said the establishment of state police is the way to go. The police authorities themselves had a major conference in Owerri barely two months ago. Speaker Abass’ proposed summit on Security may be reconsidered as the country has had enough of such.

Several position papers and statements by different geographic blocs in the country have enough for the National Assembly to chew. The Governor of Oyo State, receiving Speakers, the South West arm of Conference of Speakers from the various Houses of Assembly in the Zone on Tuesday pointed them unmistakably in the direction of the establishment of State Police. Their visit was to identify with him in his efforts on the explosion that devastated parts of Bodija Estate in the Oyo State capital, in which several houses were destroyed, roofs blown off even in areas considered not within the perimeter of the explosion. The incident was blamed on explosives illegally buried in a house within the estate by miners. Five persons died from the blast. The incident is considered an eloquent testimony and proof of the imperative of the establishment of State Police. The bitter experiences must represent a pointer to the essence of a new beginning for the wise. Enough of foot dragging!

As it is in and for all things, the ultimate panacea is familiarisation with higher knowledge available on earth today. The knowledge answers all questions of life and existence. It spells out consequences for all actions or inactions, including carelessness and negligence which avenge themselves bitterly beyond the earthly life!