The Concourse
By Soney Antai, serial award-winning columnist
Like every average human being, I don’t like sharing my bed with avoidable pain. That’s why I’m bothered by the hunger, insecurity and receding hope in the fatherland. Watching young northern women take to social media to cry out against the nefarious activities of Fulani militias leaves me with great sorrow. For these young persons, from a cultural and religious environment that likes shutting down dissenting voices, especially those of women, to come out this way, speaks volumes and should concern all people of good conscience. Theirs is clearly an avoidable pain. So, what is provoking this newfound voice of resistance?
The answer lies in the insecurity that has pervaded and pummelled most parts of northern Nigeria with such ferocity that human lives have been seriously devalued. The situation is worse in that region because flies invade the household only when a household member carries putrefying matter on their person; the weevils destroying the cereals reside inside the cereals.
Attempts by the Federal Government, which controls the security architecture of the country, have not been enough to stop the menace. Besides the insincerity of some in political offices, there are also many ungoverned spaces in the country. These gaps are exploited by criminal elements to torment innocent Nigerians. The situation has worsened in the last decade.
However, there seems to be a ray of hope tearing through the dark clouds of terrorism, banditry and kidnapping that have long darkened the firmament of this troubled country; and we can only hope that it is for real. The hope lies in the state police bill, which is nearing becoming an Act of Parliament. Having been endorsed by most states, we believe it will end well. For this, Mr President earns his flowers.
Let me be clear, though: I am not a fan of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s administration, and I am not its enemy either. I am afraid the president doesn’t care what ordinary Nigerians think of him. But, like most Nigerians, our problem with his administration is that it has overtaxed, overborrowed, and thereby impoverished us and driven us to a point of hopelessness. This lived negativity does not mean we cannot applaud him whenever necessary.
If you think I have become a turncoat, I won’t lose sleep over disappointing you. Why? You would have taken me for one infringing on a turncoat. You see, the patent for turncoating in Nigeria belongs to folks like Daniel Bwala, Kenneth Okonkwo, Fani-Kayode and Reno Omokiri. In the US, it belongs to Marco Rubio. You may add to the list.
That said, I have to commend Mr President for getting the establishment of state police bill through the State Houses of Assembly. As I write this, no fewer than 30 state legislatures have voted for state police. That is six more than the constitutional minimum of 24. It is a feat, if you ask me. With roiling insecurity and federal government ineptitude, many in the country have clamoured for this for a long time, but it had not been made a reality.
It’s not that we have never had state police in the country; but since the military took over in 1966, and their insistence that we were still a federation, some powerful, self-adoring elements have settled for the bastardised pseudo-federal system that has left us in a bat-condition. As you probably know, the bat has teeth that place it in the mammal family, and wings that place it in the bird family, yet it is fully neither.
What is unfolding may be the beginning of unbundling Nigeria and resetting it to the federalism its founding fathers bequeathed to their fumbling, groping and stumbling children. The National Assembly (NASS) has assured us that by December this year, all remaining legislative steps will be taken to get the bill to Mr President for assent, after which states will have their own police systems. This column earnestly hopes that happens.
Some have expressed fears that governors could abuse state police. This is a valid concern, especially in this era of near-normalised terrorism, religious bigotry and ethnicism. There is no doubt that in a country where we have yet to build national cohesion, broad consensus on key national performance indices, shared identity and oneness, a religious bigot of a governor, who believes he is obeying divine command by hating, oppressing and killing those who don’t share his ideology, could use the police as a tool to pursue and promote his bigotry. Such fears should be addressed in the bill by erecting guardrails that protect citizens’ rights.
At the same time, where states face terrorists invading their territories, the responsibility for dealing with such threats would now rest with the states. We have had incidents of suspected terrorists slipping into other states of the country under the guise of citizens’ freedom of movement. With the unfolding development, state police commissioners would be able to act without waiting for clearance from the police high command in Abuja. There will be no more excuse for governors to be mere ceremonial chief security officers of their states.
Fortunately, the country has examples of state policing systems in other countries to learn from, so it won’t be a walk in the dark. We could learn from India, Germany, Australia or the US, all of which run decentralised policing systems. This doesn’t mean we should lazily copy and paste a policing system from another country, but that we should adapt one or several examples to our peculiar circumstances. For instance, questions about personnel recruitment, promotion, training, deployment and operational scope, as well as judicial and legislative oversight and citizens’ channels of redress, should be clearly delineated.
May we pray and work to ensure that our country is safe from the insecurity we face, with the inauguration of state policing.