IGP and crumbling empire
Who dunnit? That’s not exactly clear — with the hee-haw after, the virtual extended clearing of the throat and the fond bid to deflect the message when it was clear total denial was impossible.
What is clear, however, would appear the conventional wisdom — more of folly, really — within the Nigeria Police: that despite being stretched so thin, almost ragged, Nigeria is still — to echo that glorious cliche — “not ripe” for state police!
It was the IGP’s glorious declaration at the House of Representatives palaver on state police and how to go about it, as part of the general re-federalization process of the polity.
A day or two later — perhaps realizing how obsolete that stand had become in the face of the current security grit, someone crawled out of the woodworks to claim the take was his personal view and not the Police’s.
Even then, a “ghost” lurks in, in there — was the disclaimer for the IGP or his envoy at the parley? Besides, how flat that sounded! Was the IGP invited over there to just say his personal opinion or reflect the view of the state institution he represents?
It’s all wash anyway — that stand against state police. The grounds indeed are laughable. The IGP’s magic formula: corral the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) and the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC) — what net difference will that make to boosting police performance, except making the IGP new “emperor” of a flabby — not necessarily more effective — Police “empire”?
Besides, aren’t the two agencies already active on the federal front? If the three — Police, NSCDC and FRSC– had been cumulatively effective, though as discrete federal civil security agencies — why the trenchant call for state police?
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Then, the appeal to fear, as desperate fear-mongering tactics: Nigeria must recruit X numbers of police personnel a year for more effectiveness, the states are too poor to run police forces, governors would abuse the police, bla, bla, bla!
Is the Federal Government, flush with resources, doing all the funding in the Police right now? Was it the one that transformed the Nigeria Police operating in Lagos to a far better force, with telling hardware and communications gadgets? Didn’t President Olusegun Obasanjo flagrantly abuse the Nigeria Police to deliver his do-or-die election of 2007? So, where is the IGP’s pseudo-moral platform coming from?
That the Police need exponential expansion in personnel even makes more logical boosting the number with state police. It’s a more effective route to that threshold.
Let the IGP and his (wo)men ponder checks-and-balances; and rigorous regulations guiding Nigeria Police-state police relations. The empire the IGP ogles has long past collapsed. The result is the dire security situation.
Let the Rip van Winkles: the arch-centralists in the Nigeria Police snap out of their reverie. Others have moved on.