Nigerians do not have confidence in the Nigeria Police because of a combination of factors that border on unprofessionalism, incompetence, insecurity, banditry, nonchalance, high-handedness, insensitivity and callousness. With these predisposing elements that have overwhelmed the police, how can citizens and even foreigners trust adversarial policemen?
Some time ago, the Lagos State House of Assembly expressed dismay and disgust at the new wave of armed robbery attacks in the state despite the massive infrastructural support by the state government. The lawmakers’ angst is quite understandable. How can this be explained other than that the police command in the state is not on top of the situation. The police seem to have gone to bed while the societal delinquents determine the pace of safety and peace in the Centre of Excellence!
According to media reports, the most worrisome aspect of the gruesome spectacle to the legislators is the bizarre claim by the police that they do not have enough operational tools to combat bandits. Of all the states in the federation, Lagos is about the greatest donor to police infrastructure in terms of utility Hilux vehicles that are rough-handled as soon as they are given to them and other hi-tech instruments! You will pity these vehicles when you see their sorry state. No value is attached to them despite the high cost of the contraptions. They are used and abandoned recklessly and yet the same police will tell you that they do not have vehicles or fuel in the ones available to respond to distress calls!
But there is always fuel to drive around in hot chase of okada (motorbike) riders, motorized illegal checkpoints and providing superfluous security for upscale social events! When these cops ambush vehicle owners and commercial bus drivers you see them at their best: for unarmed civilians it is game, but when armed robbers come out every cop in sight flees! Recently, bandits collected the Highlander SUV of a friend of mine at Ajao Estate, drove the vehicle to LASU road, ordered his wife who went out in the vehicle to go and get money with her ATM card on the way while they waited and finally told her to alight at Gbagada as they sped off! All through the journey from Ajao Estate to LASU road and finally to Gbagada there was no interception or any challenge by the police at any point during the two-hour (7-9 p.m.) staggered cruise round the city.
Not too long ago, armed robbers had an uninterrupted session from 3 a.m. in Iwaya, a suburb of Lagos, All through the hours of operation there was no challenge from anyone. Intelligence deployment, as usual, failed abysmally. It was not the first time and would not be the last. Typically, policemen in Lagos arrive on the scene of armed robbery attacks hours after the culprits had fled without any prospect of rounding them up.
Those who oppose the formation of state police say governors will abuse it. The question that then follows is: has the President been abusing the Nigeria Police? Such asinine arguments are baseless. The only point to note in this respect is that we are not yet mature, politically, for state police. Furthermore, Sections 214 and 216 of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) expressly state that no part of the Federation can establish its own police except the National Assembly deems it necessary.
Perhaps, the need has arisen for the decentralization of the RRS in the state to cover as many areas as possible—not just Ikeja and its environs. In fact, the number of RRS men and vehicles in Ikeja generally and the secretariat particularly is superfluous. Let them spread out to all those insecurity flashpoints that the police command routinely warns people to either steer clear if possible or be cautious as those danger zones exclusively belong to “bad boys”! Yet, we have cops in the state.
I thank God that there are no cases of militancy or insurgency in Lagos. Otherwise, the police here will run faster than the civilians they are meant to protect. If bandits can scare the hell out of them, there is no need imagining what will happen if the agents of the devil invade here. The few cases of kidnapping and the recurrent banditry are testimonies to what could manifest if sophisticated criminalities take place in this environment with the sleepiest police command in the nation!
With all the intervention of the state government in equipping the police in Lagos, why do they still claim that bandits are more equipped than them? So, what would have been going on if the state was not supporting them with cameras, motorbikes, APCs, rugged Hilux vehicles, among other logistical back-ups? Bandits would have overrun the city by now.
Occasionally, residents complain of sporadic gunshots in different parts of Lagos most of which are during banditry and yet there is hardly any response from timid policemen across the state. At other times, you see them driving around the city like people on a picnic, stopping here and there to harass people for one breach or another or even for nothing! Often times, also, they create temporary checkpoints where money is extorted in the name of stop-and-search. All these invidious acts are going on while bandits are terrorizing parts of the state simultaneously.
The bane of policing in Lagos is the acute lack of intelligence by policemen. They go about their legal and more illegal duties brainlessly—just brawn and intimidation of civilians. There is no training or strategy to forestall any criminality or apprehend perpetrators. Nobody cares to volunteer information because the person will become the prime suspect! In worse scenarios, ultimately, the fellow could be discreetly handed over to the accused after breaking of ‘kola-nuts’!
Another stupefying aspect of crime management in the state is that the moment any untoward thing takes place, the police will not hesitate to inform the public that the criminals were not bandits but assassins without any preliminary investigation! How do they arrive at such preposterous conclusions? This is the greatest travesty of policing: flimsy management of critical information without any fundamental or forensic proof.
If the police in Lagos were alert and responsive, vigilance committees will not be sprouting like mushrooms all over the city. Residents have discovered that to depend on the police is to covenant with death. In my street in Surulere for instance, I know how much we spend on night-guards and other related issues. The same applies to other neighbourhoods state-wide. There is hardly any compound, street or estate that does not have its own vigilance mechanism domestically generated while policemen have become PHCN as standby, if need be!
The Lagos Police Command is not beyond redemption. Police authorities should rescue the state from the clutches of bandits and other criminals—their grip is becoming intractable as the officers and men here are on vacation!
Once security is not guaranteed, all the efforts of the government to transform the state will amount to a fiasco because the root of development and the safety of life and property inseparably hinge on it.
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