The seeming intractable killings by herdsmen in Nigeria can be addressed within six months by a masterstroke of amending the law on policing immediately. As politicians would say, it is doable if only they can muster the will and burning desire to save the lives of poor peasant farmers struggling to eke out a living from overused farmlands all over the middle belt and the South if Nigeria.
A lot of our countrymen are pained and disturbed by the butchery of innocent citizens nearly on a daily basis. The rest of the world is hardly perturbed by what is happening as black lives hardly matter to White supremacists. If a tenth of what is going on here was happening in Asia, the Middle East or South America, one is sure that the UN Security Council would have met by now to discuss it. That is not to be because black Africa is concerned. African Leaders by their body language(some even have body odour) give the impression that the lives of their fellow countrymen are worth next to nothing hence the contempt that they held by the rest of the civilized World. You can imagine a Western Leader calling African countries Shitholes, whatever that means.
This is the time for us to be sincere or even try to appear so to solve problems created by us. How can hordes of murdering bestial gangs move about freely in local communities, hacking people to death with glee and yet no viable solution has been brought to play in order to stem the bloodletting going on.
Is it that some people are enjoying the killings and do not want them to stop. It is our madness, to say the least, that this kind of thing should be happening in the 21st Century of an innovative scientific and technological revolution. So what do I have in mind? It is as simply suggested by the heading if this article. It is the introduction of State Police.
Nigeria is about the only country that claims to run a federal system of government and at the same time having a National Force. Let us assume for the purposes of argument that there are 250,000 police officers serving in the Nigeria Police, covering the 774 Local Governments in Nigeria. How effective or efficient is this coverage? The Police have become the button of many jokes in Nigeria. This may not necessarily be as a result of their own making but because of the environment, they have to contend with a couple with the unwieldy nature of its Command and Control.12 Zonal Commands and 37 State Commands(With FCT Abuja treated as a State Command).
States that have 20 -30 local governments may have up to 30 to 50 police divisions commanded by Divisional Police Officers or DPOs.There are minor out stations and village police posts also under the police divisions.
If an Order is issued in Abuja by the Police High Command, it is always assumed that the Zonal AIGs and CPs disseminate these Directives to the DPOs, who in turn pass this order to all Officers and Men down to the village Police Post. This may not always be the case. Some of the members of the Rank and File do not know the name of their Commissioner of Police. Some don’t even know their DPO’s name. There is general confusion in the top to the bottom channel of communication.
The process of feedback in the bottom-up route is mainly flawed introducing a clog in the smooth performance of the Police System.No serving officer would like to stick his name out to complain about the pervasive inefficiency in the system for fear of a backlash by the powers that be.
The Nigeria Police should be disbanded as a National Force and in its place, a new law should come into immediate effect for the establishment of State Police. Each State must have its autonomous Police Service dedicated to the service of its citizens. A special Crime squad patterned after the FBI should be established for the investigation of federal crimes like organized criminal activities, drugs, currency and interstate crimes.
The details can be worked out and fine-tuned to meet our local circumstances.
Policing should be local.Locals must police locals.Strangers with different cultures and worldview cannot police locals of a different orientation and disposition.
As soon as State Police is in place I bet all that the serial killings by marauding herdsmen would have died a natural death. We can not be unmindful of allegations of collusion between security personnel and some unscrupulous criminals even as we write. This is possible because non-indigenous officers who have no stake in the development of an “Alien State” don’t care shoot if tens or hundreds of poor villagers are slaughtered including women and children.
It is only those vipers and myopic local colonizers who will not see anything good in ensuring that equity and justice are enthroned for a stable and progressive polity. The masterstroke to stop the incessant killing of poor peasants by criminals trained by Late Ghadaffi as alleged and some other foreigners from neighbouring countries is here. The Empire builders who want to expand their territories from the desert of “Libya”, Niger and Chad to the lush green vegetation of the South to the Coast must be stopped and now.
National Assembly, over to you. We believe that you can turn things around and absolve yourselves of the blood guilt that is hanging over the heads of many who by their actions or inaction made it possible for the carnage to get worse by the day. State Police is the answer.
AIG DONALD.O IROHAM,NPM,mni (Ret).
