By Tunde Rahman
Given how sensitive the subject has become, it is understandable that the matter of state police has taken this long. Importantly, it has also become imperative that some drastic measures have to be taken to end the current security situation.
Last week, President Bola Tinubu finally took the critical step towards tackling the hydra-headed security problem in the country.
States that want to establish their own police, he declared, should now be free to do so. The widely-praised decision on state police was part of far-reaching orders the President issued that week, when he declared a national emergency on security.
Many leaders before Tinubu had seen the need for state police, but they lacked the political will to do what has long been regarded as necessary.
In a strongly-worded statement issued on November 26, President Tinubu also directed that the Armed Forces and police should recruit additional personnel, while the State Security Service should now deploy the already-trained Forest Guards to our forests to flush out terrorists, bandits, and other criminal elements.
The President had earlier ordered the Inspector-General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun, to immediately withdraw police personnel serving as guards to Very Important Personalities and engage them for police duties in security-challenged areas. Egbetokun said during the week that over 11,000 officers so deployed have now been withdrawn from VIP guard duties.
While all these measures will make more personnel available and put more boots on the ground to combat crimes and other forms of insecurity across the land, the matter of state police, a hot-button issue that has been on the agenda for decades, seems to be the most fundamental.
By finally agreeing to throw his weight behind the issue, President Tinubu has now taken the bull by the horns.
He has taken his silent restructuring efforts to another notch. Many may not have noticed, but the silent restructuring has resulted in several courageous and innovative moves. For instance, one of the first bills President Tinubu signed into law upon assuming office on May 29, 2023, was the power sector reform legislation, which decentralised power generation, transmission, and distribution, allowing sub-nationals to participate in the sector. The President also approved that Federal Capital Territory funds be removed from the Treasury Single Account, thus unlocking the funds accruing to the territory for FCT Minister Nyesom Wike to deploy to developmental projects. And this is what has largely accounted for the unprecedented infrastructure revamp witnessed in the city.
But the most significant of these are the economic reforms the President has carried out, straddling fiscal policy, energy sector reform and tax restructuring. The President removed the twin subsidies on fuel and foreign exchange, which did not benefit the people and the country as envisaged. The humongous fuel subsidy was like a Sword of Damocles on the nation’s economic jugular, while the multiple exchange rates that prevailed before May 2023 allowed arbitrage to operate on all fours. All that the highly connected needed to do was this: obtain the foreign exchange at the official rate and move over to the black markets to sell at exorbitant rates, thus profiteering at the people’s expense.
There is also the new tax regime, scheduled to be operational from January next year, under which all taxes in the country have been streamlined, without burdening taxpayers with new taxes.
These monumental reforms are already yielding fruit. The economic indicators have already turned green. All that is left is for our people to reap bountifully from the gains of the reforms. The reforms need to affect their standard of living fully.
However, this cannot happen under the prevailing atmosphere of insecurity. This cannot occur if terrorists, bandits and other criminal elements are still on the prowl. No stone is, therefore, being left unturned in addressing the security issues. All efforts must be geared towards combating the menace and protecting our people.
The resort to state policing has the potential to reduce crimes, if not eliminate them. The people know most of the criminals in their neighbourhoods and communities. Giving states the power to establish their own police, as is the case in other jurisdictions, will convert the groundswell of intelligence at the local level into an advantage in surveillance, crime detection, and prevention.
Those who argue that the governors would abuse state police with their absolute control, that the police may become a tool in the hands of the states’ chief executives for hounding and oppressing political opponents, should also remember that even federal police are subject to abuse. The #EndSARS protests of October 2020 was initially intended to draw attention to the excesses of the police, particularly police brutality from the now-disbanded SARS unit, before hoodlums hijacked the protests to unleash arson and loot public property and assets of targeted individuals.
State police may not be an end in itself. It would indeed require necessary fine-tuning, checks and corrections along the line when the system becomes operational. Those recruited into state police forces must be adequately trained, equipped, and briefed to understand the importance of their work and the implications of using force for improper purposes.
Now, the National Assembly and the general public have their own responsibility cut out for them. The lawmakers should now play their part by enacting the enabling laws to give effect to state policing. Under our federal system of government, states ordinarily should have been empowered to maintain their own police forces, as the Federal Government does. This did not happen. State police is indeed long overdue.
President Tinubu had said in his national security emergency statement: “I call on the National Assembly to begin reviewing our laws to allow states that require state police to establish them.
States should rethink establishing boarding schools in remote areas without adequate security. Mosques and churches should constantly seek police and other security protection when they gather for prayers, especially in vulnerable areas.”
He had said further: “My fellow Nigerians, this is a national emergency, and we are responding by deploying more boots on the ground, especially in security-challenged areas. The times require all hands on deck. As Nigerians, we should all get involved in securing our nation.”
Also relevant to this security challenge is the whistleblowers’ role. Our people should be encouraged to smoke out crime wherever it may be lurking by providing information to the police. It is now imperative for the National Assembly to enact the necessary laws to protect whistleblowers. The Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes and Other Matters Commission, Mr Ola Olukoyede, has long been advocating this. The National Assembly must now take the gauntlet in the interest of a crime-free Nigeria and for the benefit of Nigerians. Let’s seize the moment we have craved for years.
*Rahman is Senior Special Assistant to President Tinubu on Media & Special Duties.
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