How Army Destroyed Police By Prof. Mike Ikhariale

While announcing the good news about President Buhari’s recent
approval of a new salary scheme for the Police last week, Garba
Shehu, one of the president’s media assistants disclosed that Mr.
President hopes that their newly enhanced emolument, the “Buhari
Award”, would inspire members of the force to return to their
primary duty of maintaining law and order.

He further indicated that the failure of the Police Force to
adequately perform its Constitutional roles has forced the Army to
be actively engaged in purely civil assignments at the expense of
its expected performances in serious combat situations such as
those presented by the Boko Haram insurgency, the incipient IPOB
rebellion, the herdsmen invasion, the widespread inter-ethnic
feuds, lingering unrests in the Niger Delta, rampant kidnappings
and incessant armed robberies, etc., that are cumulatively
threatening the sovereign and territorial integrity of the
Republic.

In Mr. President’s assessment, the Police have become a drag on
the Army’s ability to safeguard the territorial integrity of
Nigeria. While that observation with respect to the operational
incompetence of the Police is true, it is however not the complete
story. The Police’s institutional image has long been tarnished and
gravely undermined, ostensibly stemming from its colonial era
heritage, having previously served the colonialists as a brutal
tool for the oppression of the occupied local populations. Sadly,
its reputation is at its nadir today.

Given the size, complexities and population of Nigeria, Police
is currently suffering from acute shortages of both men and
materials but its greatest drawback is essentially psychological –
exemplified by a grossly bruised professional ego. The
institutional psyche of the Force has been so battered that most of
its traditional sense of duty and institutional prestige have
departed the consciousness of the average officer. Apart from the
few who are lucky to be serving as orderlies and bodyguards, more
or less as houseboys, to politicians and wealthy members of the
society, the rest generally see themselves as a specially
denigrated class of people while they in turn openly express their
frustrations in many unprofessional ways such as indiscriminately
demanding and collecting bribes from whoever comes their way;
extorting and harassing road-users and many sundry acts of
unprofessional delict.

That was not always the case. The situation of the force
gradually degenerated from bad to worse over the years and the
descent was accelerated further by a military class that often see
them as unequal competitors, if not enemies. The problems escalated
in earnest during the heydays of incessant coups d’état and
counter-coups. Successive military juntas, afraid that the Police
could be a counter-force to their hideous criminality of coups
planning and execution, resolved to decimate the Force as brutally
as was possible. There is however an unexpected boomerang as
soldiers are now being deployed to be keeping civil order across
Nigeria even though their proper constitutional role is to defend
the country against external aggression all because the Police have
been so badly incapacitated.

President Buhari himself would easily recall how after the coup
toppled the democratically elected government of President Shehu
Shagari in 1983, the coupists, suspecting that the Police had
wanted to resist their unconstitutional action, proceeded to
humiliate the force’s hierarchy and weakened its operations through
massive underfunding and the stark refusal to equip them; the
anti-riot and anti-unrests elite mobile unit, alias, MOPOL, was
particularly singled out and fiendishly reduced to Boy Scout’s
level as their sophisticated operational tools and resources, even
uniforms, were degraded. Denied of its professional pride and
modern intel tools and communication resources by the military
because they were viewed as potential obstacles against their
illegitimate incursions into politics, the Police was subsequently
reduced to a level where its officers and men have to necessarily
take care of themselves through any means possible, proper and
improper, dignified or not.

Some people saw the unfortunate bourgeoning development then as
a mere manifestation of inter-service rivalry or jealousy but the
real consequence of it all was the eventual degradation of the
capacity of the Police to fulfil its constitutional mandate of
safeguarding the society. The situation did not change even after
the return of democracy in 1999 because the head of that civilian
government was a former soldier, the same group that has, in the
past, held the Police in disdain and utter contempt. The already
ugly situation was further compounded recently by the government
when it retired several layers of the Force’s leadership-ready,
better policy- and strategy-informed officer corps just to make it
possible to have the present IGP appointed.

That exercise seriously undermined the operational capacity of
the Police in many facets of its ongoing nation-wide challenges.
With so many competent and seasoned officers wastefully thrown away
from service, it has to be expected that there would be serious
incidents of command lapses and debilitating lack of tactical
direction, at least, in the short run.

There is no doubt that members of the Police Force will be
better off with the promised “Buhari Award” but it is not going to
solve the deep-rooted negative mentality of the average police
officer who unfortunately sees himself as a member of a terribly
vilified tribe that has no need to seek for higher levels of
professionalism or expect respect from an equally skeptical
society. One of the negative legacies of military incursions into
politics in Nigeria is the mindless destruction of the Police
force. Other key institutions of State also destroyed include,
inter alia, Education, Public Service and the Judiciary – all being
the palladia of a healthy, functional, progressive and secured
society.

Of immediate concern to us today is the plight of the Police,
one which has transformed into the unabating security nightmare
currently confronting the nation: no police, no orderly peace.
There have been several suggestions about how to bring back the
glory and operational effectiveness of the force. There are calls
for the immediate introduction of State Police within the context
of community policing. So far, those who ought to know better are
playing the Ostrich with the State Police Question. My considered
take on it has always been that those clamouring for “restructure”
as a slogan of convenience but refuse to support the calls for
State Police are either ignorant or mischievous or both because
“true federalism” implies the ability of the various levels of
government to perform their functions, including police functions
(arising from within their respective jurisdictions) BUT in a
situation where you talk of a Federal Republic without
constitutionally designated separate police forces to service the
various tiers of government, we should naturally expect anarchy
aplenty.

Our leaders would rather waste public funds hiring thugs and
engaging private criminal henchmen for their personal protection
and for the execution of sundry criminal assignments instead of
utilising the officially designated and accountable constabulary
whose roles, responsibilities are constitutionally defined and
their limits clearly prescribed. Until we’re able to sufficiently
re-orientate and properly fund the Police, mentally and materially
reshape its operations in ways that are tactically complemented by
States and Local Governments Police Services, the overall security
status of the federation shall remain precarious and it would
really have been nice if President Buhari can also extend his
present positive attention to the Police to those other more
fundamental obstacles militating against credible and effective
policing of the nation.

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