STATE POLICE AND PEDESTRIAN ANALYSIS OF RETIRED POLICE CHIEFS BY Polycarp Onwubiko

Taking into full consideration how critical public issues in Nigeria are being canvassed going by the pedestrian bent with primordial considerations of sectional, religious cum ethnicity, I had no option than to describe the Nigeria Police Force, NPF as “Northern Moslem Police, NMP” in one of my recent write-ups. It is perplexing that in 21st century, only in Nigeria in African continent that human beings created in the image of the Almighty God are left by their state governments to be living in the bush and trek thousands of kilometers from the northern part of the country down to south in the name rearing cattle. This is unlike the less human and natural resources gifted countries in the sub-region which rear cattle but had keyed into civilization by establishing ranches which net humongous foreign exchange for socio-economic development for the over-all weal and welfare of the people.
 When these herdsmen who behave like wild animals herd their cattle into farm lands; and in justifiable anger the owners of the farms rise in protestation like every other mortals, these terrorists masquerading as herdsmen would viciously attack them, butchering them, raping their women to satisfy sexual urge, kidnaping them;  in addition to sundry impunity bordering on criminality. When such criminal matters are reported to the supposed Nigeria Police for arrest and prosecution, they wouldfeign helpless. In rare cases when some arrests were made by extra courageous police personnel who hail from the south who naturally understand the frustrations of the farmers, a phone call from Alhajis who owns the cattle would make the police man to shiver since it came from the alleged “owners” of the apparently accursed country, Nigeria.
In the southern part of the country, the police personnel indigenous to the northern part of the country are trigger-happy, reckless and covetous. They readily resort to shooting driversand commercial motor-cyclists and try-cyclists who hesitate to part with money [‘rogers’] on their routine daily patrol on the roads; and nothing would come out of the criminal act since their kits and kin are strategically and lopsidedly positioned to take final decisions on cases and make them go scot-free. In recruitment, promotion, advancement, in-service training, transfers, postings and deployments, nepotism play over-whelming roles.
It is greatly astonishing that the leeway given by the “Northern Moslem Police” to the Fulani herdsmen for unrelenting impunity and criminal exploits   has not been perceived as a potential time-bomb by President Muhammadu Buhari, perceived as a father to all Nigerians. This apparent nepotism is a variant of corruption which is one of the factors that ignite ethnic uprisings like MEND, AFENIFERE, MASSOB and IPOB in the southern part of the country. The untoward state of affairs fuelled their agitation for a separate country of their own. In actual fact, the import of MASSOB and IPOB is a strident call for the immediate restructuring of the countryto remove the monumental lopsidedness in state and local government creations, revenue allocations and over-centralization of many MDA’s and the supreme imperative of state police to check the pervasive and intractable insecurity all over the country. In other words, the reinventing of realistic practice of federal system of government [true federalism] as obtains in other countries. Nigeria can no longer afford to be practicing pseudo federalism to the advantage of the Northern Moslems which had dragged progressive ethnic groups backwards, like the Igbos and Yorubas to stone-age governance. The ethnic groups abhor a situation where the Northern feudal caliphate would continue to monopolize political leadership while others are vassals and lord things over them willy-nilly.
Northern Moslems have perfected subtle strategies to subvert any agitation for restructuring the country in general and state police in particular. For instance, when the lopsided NationalAssembly was panel-beating the 1999 military imposed Constitution,[instead of fresh constitution crafted by the federating ethnic nationalities to reflect true federalism], the southerners in both chambers of the parliament reasonably canvassed for state police and those from the north central geo-political zone [middle belt] aligned with them. Surprisingly in a ferocious move, the Arewa Consultative Forum ACF summoned the improperly constituted “Northern States Governors Forum, NSGF”; [instead of respective ‘ North East’, ‘North West’ and ‘North Central’ Governors Forum like the respective South East, South-South and South West Governors Forum to respect the created six geo-political zones in the country for equity, fair play and justice purposes] and instructed them to compel their legislators to back down on their earlier support for state police. To the utter consternation of the legislators from the south, their counterparts from the middle belt withdrew their earlier support for state police.
In an article captioned “state police: need to apply caution” by Hassan Zaggi, The Authority, December 1, 2015, it became clear that the feudal caliphate has hired hark writers and mobilized retired police chiefs to be warning the nation about the danger of secession of certain ethnic groups if state police is allowed. The fact is that these retired police chiefs are stark illiterates. They entered the force with primary school leaving certificates but having realized that getting to the top of their public service career would need university education, they got it by all means but without having the courses of studies sink into their sub-conscious mind for the needed enlightenment for analysis of critical public issues. If they had perused ‘O/Level Government they would have known that there are contrasting or distinguishing features between federal system of government and unitary system of government and would stop saying that state police would lead to secession and exploited by governors.
The fundamental duty of government the world over is effective and efficient security.  With restructuring for True Federalism, states will constitute committee [without the input of governors and traditional rulers to avoid subterranean influences] charged with recruitments, promotions and transfers.Head of the police should be rotatory among the LGA’sat intervals.

Buhari administration should stop the illusion that there will be security in Nigeria with the centralized police contrary to the principles of federalism. People should warn their governors from giving their money to the police while they cannot meet their basic needs; the Nigeria Police would have collapsed but the illegal funding by the governors. State governors are in the position to build modern prisons like former governor Godswill Akpabio of Akwa-Ibom state. The present state of the Nigeria prisons is a disgrace to civilization and abuse of humanity.
Mr Onwubiko is a public affairs commentator, [email protected], Awka Anambra state