It was a gathering of intellectuals, seasoned journalists and top rated human rights fighters, otherwise addressed as members of the Civil Society Organisations (CSO).
They gathered at the Ekiti Hall of the Airport Hotel, in Lagos, to discuss blueprint on coming out with better security agencies, thanks to the incoming General Muhammadu Buhari administration. The crucial issues were that Buhari should overhaul Nigeria’s security, restore professionalism, discipline and effectiveness.
The newly elected president should also do everything within his power to check corruption, abuse and impunity.
According to the speakers, the solution to the limping security issues in Nigeria could be sorted out through a short and long term solution. The short term solution, which should be immediate, is for Buhari to sack service chiefs who had been known to be corrupt and were partisan. While the long term solution is for Buhari to adopt and implement the final report of the Civil Society Panel on Police Reform in Nigeria (2012).
The National Coordinator of the Network on Police Reforms in Nigeria (NOPRIN), Mr. Okechukwu Nwanguma, acting as spokesman for the agitators, said that with the return to civil rule and the eventual restoration of democratic processes in Nigeria following the 1999 elections, there was clamour for police reform. He noted: “This was due to the ignoble role that the police and other security agencies played during that long and dark era of military rule.
The police were used to sustain authoritarianism and to repress basic freedoms. If police reform was imperative with the advent of civil rule, it has become even more urgent and inevitable now, considering the subversive role that the police, the State Security Service and the military have continued to play under this dispensation, particularly under the current administration, especially with the approach of elections, during political campaigns and during the elections proper.
The Nigeria security services have all become politicised, partisan, unprofessional, incompetent, corrupt, brutal, and unable to serve and protect the people.”
It was noted that successive governments had always responded to the clamour for police reform by setting up committee after committee without the will to implement the recommendations made by the committees.
In February 2012, President Goodluck Jonathan set up what would be the third Presidential Committee on Police reform set up in Nigeria since 1999. The, first and second committees were set up by the previous administrations of former- President Olusegun Obasanjo (in 2006) and the late Umaru Yar’Adua in 2008, respectively.
In response to President Jonathan’s decision to set up yet another committee in 2012, key non-governmental organisations working on police reform issues in Nigeria decided to engage the process in a cre-ative and proactive way through the establishment of a parallel but complementary Civil Society Panel on Police Reform in Nigeria, using the same terms of reference drawn by the government of President Jonathan.
The panel operated under the auspices of the NOPRIN. Nwanguma said: “The panel requested and received memoranda from the general public. We also held public hearings in seven cities one in each of Nigeria’s six geopolitical zones and the FCT, during which oral and written presentations were made by members of the public and other interested stakeholders. The panel completed its work and in September 2012 submitted the report of the Federal Government panel for the consideration of the government.”
Members of the CSO said it was saddening that three years on, nothing much had been done to implement the recommended reforms. They feel, however, that the election of Buhari, who will be sworn in as the President on May 29, 2015 presents another opportunity to represent the CSO Panel Report on police reform.
Nwanguma said: “We’ll expect him to demonstrate his commitment to police reform by revisiting the CSO Panel Report alongside the shelved reports of successive government panels on police reform. We will also require his government to support and facilitate the quick passage of the Police Bill pending since 2004 and meant to review the Police Act enacted by the colonial administration as far back as 1943 and which is long overdue for review.”
The gathering also agreed that over the years, the police have continued to grapple with the problem of severe underresourcing. Budget allocations for the police are freely pilfered at various levels in the line of bureaucracy before they reach their final destination. “Under the new government, funding for the police must improve and must be released on time to enable planning. Pilfering of police funds must also stop.
Material and financial donations to the police by private individuals and organisations as well as by local and state governments must also be accounted for,” said Nwanguma. The spokesman said that compromised and corruption-ridden recruitment process allows misfits and criminals to find their way into the police and continue to dent its image. He argued that the police training curriculum was shallow and training institutions dysfunctional. Thus, the police force continues to parade a mass of poorly trained, ill-equipped, badly paid and ill-motivated workforce, prone to corruption and violence.
“Under the new regime, the recruitment process must be sanitised. The government must show genuine commitment to police reform. One of the reforms that the new government must undertake urgently is to decentralise the force and devolve power and resources to enhance effectiveness and the involvement of local communities in policing,” asserted Nwanguma. The participants said that while a lot of factors were not within the control of the IGP, there still remains some space for any IGP who is genuinely committed to reform to show leadership.
According to them, with determination and dedication, a well-meaning IGP could creatively exercise powers and ensure that things within his control in the system work well. Taking a swipe at the present Inspector General of Police, Mr. Suleiman Abba, the group said that he had failed to exhibit the commitment and competence to improve in the areas where his predecessors did not fare very well. The group insisted that he failed to make it clear to police officers that their duty was to serve and protect their communities and not to prey on them.
Abba also allegedly allowed corruption, torture, brutality and killings to remain the order of the day in the police by failing to punish and deter misconduct and abuses when they occur. “Police officers ought to be protectors, not predators. Human rights abuses breed public resentment and erode public trust and cooperation,” they averred.
Buttressing the heated argument in the house, Nwanguma said that under Abba, police partisanship had assumed the status of an official police code. It was alleged that under Abba, the Nigeria police acted more like the security arm of the ruling party rather than as a professional police force of democracy committed to public service and protection of the citizens.
They stressed that no single complaint of police abuse brought to the attention of the IGP by NOPRIN or other CSO was ever acknowledged. NOPRIN which had always acted as a watchdog over the activities of the police said that under Abba, Nigerians witnesses senior police officers like Mbu Joseph Mbu acting with reckless impunity and displaying utter contempt for the rule of law. Nwanguma said: “For all his numerous excesses, from Rivers State to the FCT as CP, and now to Zone 2 as AIG, neither the IGP nor the President for once called Mbu to order. Instead, he was rewarded with a promotion from CP to AIG in spite of his brazen partisanship and irresponsible public conduct.
This was a clear statement that this government rewards and promotes misconduct. “It was only the former IGP, Mr Muhammed Abubakar who came close to calling Mbu to order when he overruled him after he, as the CP of the FCT, purported to have banned public processions in Abuja in the wake of the #BringBackOurGirls Campaign. Under Abba, Mbu became even more brazenly contemptuous of civility and undermined all professional ethics.” When some participants argued that Abba had been too caught up with the election plans and security of the nation to pay attention to other issues, Mrs. Kate of PRAWA, said people should not make excuses for the IGP. Nwanguma said that the virus of partisanship which had destroyed professionalism and efficiency in the police also caught up with the entire security services in Nigeria, including the Armed Forces.
He opined that the way the military had conducted themselves during political campaigns and elections clearly showed how partisan military authorities had also become. He said: “We did not need to look far to get the explanation as to why the military failed woefully in combating and defeating insurgency. It was not because the personnel are not committed to their duties. It simply was because the military authorities were corrupt and politically exposed and therefore, partisan.”
Nwanguma and the rest activists, said that there was the urgent need for the newly elected President, upon being sworn in as President to immediately, and in the short term, overhaul the entire security architecture of Nigeria to insulate the military, the police and the SSS from partisan political control and enhance professionalism, integrity and efficiency.
“All Service Chiefs, the Director of SSS, the Inspector General of Police and all heads of similarly compromised security services as well as all senior officers who have been politically exposed should be retired compulsorily to restore integrity and professionalism in our security services.
They clearly showed where their loyalty is: not to the law, not to the Nigerian people, through their elected representative but solely to the executive and the ruling party,” they insisted. Further explaining the long term solution to security issues in Nigeria, the group said Buhari should support a constitutionamendment to insulate the police from political control.
According to them, Section 215(3) of the Constitution and sections 9(4, 5) and 10(1, 2) of the Police Act should be amended to remove operational control of the police from the President and return it to the IGP who is the professional. The police should be accountable to multiple constituencies, not just the executive.
It should also be accountable to the law, the judiciary and to the people through their elected representatives. Nwanguma said that the President should also support a reform to stipulate leadership qualifications and entrench a competitive and transparent appointment procedure in the Nigeria police force to enhance competence, integrity and effectiveness, ensure operational autonomy and insulate the police leadership from political control. To achieve this, the activist noted that, Sections 215(1) and. 215 (2) of the Constitution should be amended to provide for a competitive and transparent process to be followed in the appointment of an IGP, specifying relevant competences and qualifications that must be met by a prospective IGP. Operational autonomy and security of tenure for the IGP would ensure professionalism.
“There are many senior military and police officers in service who have not been tainted and who have continued to do their best to defend and promote professionalism. From among these ones, new service chiefs and a new IGP should be appointed,” Nwanguma suggested.
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