It's the way Nigerians have been clamouring for state police like it's their birthright for me. State Police itself is not bad, but when a thing is perverted and loses its purpose, it becomes bad.
The Nigerian Police was created by Section 214(1) and already due to its rigid wordings it provides that aside the Federal or National Police Force, there shall be no other Police Force. From the statutes written above, it can be seen that the State Police Force as it stands now is illegal.
Now, as of today the Member of the Lagos State House of Assembly, in person of Noheem Adams moved a motion for the creation and establishment of State Police Force then it resurfaced again. State Police looking at it from an Utopian perspective would be very useful to Nigeria, especially with the hordes of insecurity and insurgency in various parts of the nation.
However, if we come to the realist point of view, we would see that this would do us a lot of bad than good in the system:
First of all, the creation of State Police would dig a large hole in our financial reserves as we would need to purchase more vehicles, ammunitions, build new police stations, new uniforms which will be highly effective and probably different from state to state and guess what that means, a good opportunity for politicians to siphon money and a new opportunity for embezzlement.
My second reason why this may backfire is that the recruitment would be restricted and unlike the National Police Force, this one does not foster national bonding and unity as everyone would prefer to work in his or her own state.
Further, there may be conflict of laws and interest between the National Police Force and the state police forces in issues of funding, and legislation and criminal prosecution and procedure, they could also be difficulty in law making and performance of their duties.
Tribalism, corruption, nepotism and favouritism would be the order of the day without putting the right system in place because we see that at the national level in a large scale so we haven't finished combating that and we want to go to the state level?. To me that's building on a faulty foundation.
Besides the above, there would be tendencies of more cases of police brutality, extortion of citizens and more horrendous crimes committed by those who ought to protect us, what a shame! When the police is not your friend, when bail is not free, when people die like ants and rot like millipedes without being heard or being tried.
Everything has two sides like a smile and a coin, but in this matter without curbing matters arising and putting more measures and legislation in order, State Police would be a bad creation especially in states facing political tensions during election periods, instead of being a security agency, they would be a machinery and an accomplice in such crimes.
No comments yet. Sign in to join the discussion.