Nigeria Society for Criminology cautions against hasty establishment of state police

…says solutions to insecurity are good governance, social justice, and social protection

As the possibility of Nigeria having a state police gathers momentum, experts at the Nigeria Society for Criminology (NSC), on Thursday, called for a national legislation to limit the abuse of state police and check system of local oppression of Nigerians.

The experts, Professors Etannibi Alemika, Smart Otu, and Lanre Ikuteyijo, made this known while speaking at the webinar organized by the executive of the Nigeria Society for Criminology titled, “Perspectives on State Policing”.

The trio highlighted both the benefits (improves security, provision of job opportunities, promotes true federalism, enhances local)and challenges (decentralised police system may breed antagonistic competitions among forces, varied standards and processes of operations, partisanship and capture by local dominant powers; poor coordination of information sharing and cross-border operations across jurisdiction; displacement of crime across jurisdiction) associated with the establishment of state police.

They, however, cautioned on the need to seek expert input in drafting a framework that will be suitable based on research evidence.

While both the Board of Trustee Chairman of the Society, Prof. Alemika and Prof. Ikuteyijo, maintained that the problems encountering the Nigerian Police must be solved to make it more efficient and effective, they however warned that any rush to establish state police without due diligence will reproduce the same structural, organizational and individual challenges which the Nigeria police is faced with.

Specifically, Alemika noted that “Police is not a transformative agency because its role is to reproduce the prevailing social order and repress dissent against it”.

He noted that solutions to crimes and criminality “are to be sought within the social, political and economic structures that cause and reproduce them for the benefit of the economic, political and social power-holders in Nigeria”

According to him, “Police and policing reforms will not guarantee security and development without good governance, efficient public service delivery of essential services such as education, health care, shelter, water, sanitation, communication and transportation by the government as well as opportunity for meaningful employment and income, social recognition, equality and justice, social protection from deprivations.  Police performance and relations with citizens reflect the extent of good governance and the performance of government, of which the police force is an agent.

“The quest for good policing must be an intrinsic element of struggle for the entrenchment of a social democratic political system and a developed economy managed and advanced for the welfare, security, and dignity of citizens. Without scrupulous interrogation or scrutiny of the constitutional provisions, bills and laws to establish state police and the adequate constitutional limitations to prevent egregious abuse of police powers, the clamour for state police by the power-holders may pass for them to realise their latent aim of capturing the state and turning the country into a police state.”

In his opening remarks, President, Nigeria Society of Criminology, Prof. Oludayo Tade, stated that one of the mandates of the society is to guide government in the formulation of appropriate policies to check criminality and criminal behavior and improve Nigeria’s criminal justice system.

He noted that the Society is ready to partner with relevant government organ/agencies to review and recommend a suitable model that will improve the security situation in the country.