During my formative years as a reporter with the now defunct National Concord newspaper, I was opportune to be posted to cover the dreaded crime beat in 1984. Mr. Etim Okon lnyang, an Akwa-lbom indigene, held sway at the time as the fifth Inspector-General of the Nigeria Police. The crime beat, which include the police beat,was very vibrant and challenging, with very few result-oriented reporters, unlike today when the number has increased tremendously due to upsurge in criminality and the number of media organisations.

The relationship between the reporters and the police afforded them the opportunity to understand the administration and operational management of the police institution.

Mr. lnyang and Alhaji Gambo Jimeta, who later took over from him some years after, were very pragmatic police leaders. I recall when lnyang drove a few of us crime reporters on a mid-day operational on-the-spot search of policemen on patrol beats and checkpoints. His directive was that no policeman on such beats should have more than N50 in his possession. The operation was tagged “The Ten Commandments of IGP Inyang.”

During the daylight raid, many policemen were arrested and punished. All through the years, IGPs have articulated many policies to mark them out differently in the way they believe the police should be managed. Unfortunately, none of the 14 past IGPs had envisioned that a time would arise in the country when there would be the need to decentralize the police, so that each federating unit of the country could manage its own police system to be known as “State Police” as it is operational in other developed countries.

For example, in Britain, the police structure is decentralised, so is the United States of America , where there is “New York Police” as it is in all the federating states in USA. Impressively,  the United States of America Criminal Justice System — Policing overview: Law enforcement in the USA is decentralized. Federal authorities deal with violations of federal law, Police Services, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Drug Enforcement Administration, Customs and Border Protection.

When policing was first established in Nigeria in 1820, it was a constabulary with 200 men. Record further shows that three major parts of the country were selected for the establishment, North, Calabar and Lagos.

Nigeria Police was then paramilitary; Hausa Constabulary was formed. In 1896, the Lagos Police was established and the Niger Coast Constabulary was formed in Calabar in 1894 under the newly proclaimed Niger Coast Protectorate. Each was specifically set up and was unique operationally. The British colonial masters used the police to enhance their indirect rule system by collaborating with the traditional rulers to better enforce security.  With the rate of development and establishment of a central government, there was need for the centralization of the police. However, the system got worse as the police population increased and record was not easy to compute. Administrative and operational procedures became a problem. Once, there was a mild drama at the Senate committee overseeing the Nigeria Police. Fortunately, I was on the entourage of the IGP Ogbomnaya Onovo then. It was the turn of the police to defend their budget. The IGP was excused out of the room, leaving the chairman of the Police Service Commission, Mr. Parry Osayande. Based on the statistical information available to him, the police staff strength he tabled did not tally with that from Onovo. There was  irregularity and this inability to have a correct figure enraged the Senate committee members. The irregularity about the staff strength of the entire police made it more obvious for its decentralization.

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Also, equipping the police became problematic as the Federal Government often shied away from the responsibility. Simply, the centralization of the police has created an overwhelming operational and administrative burden on the country. No wonder governors from the southern states and their colleagues in the opposition party the People Democratic Party (PDP) recently rose from a meeting where they unianimously beckoned on the Federal Government to approve through the National Assembly for the establishment of state police. The same way we call on our Creator, “to give us this day…” depending  on individual wish.

This writer has consistently been a strong advocate of state police. The “Elephant” symbol of the police is too heavy to operate effectively any longer. Had the police been decentralized when the leader of Boko Haram, Mallam Muhammed Yusuf, was  illegally gathering and indoctrinating Borno youths, under a state police system, all the security apparatus would have been ignited to effectively control his religious  rascality that eventually developed into insurgency.

The governor was depending on the federal police that was laid-back operationally. Today, thousands of innocent lives and properties worth billions of naira have been destroyed. Such operational laxity abounds across the country.

The #EndSARS agitation was another evidence of federal security laxity. When the agitation was building up in Lagos State, had there been a state police structure, the time and efforts wasted by Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu in trying to establish official contact with the Federal Government would have effectively been translated into quelling the agitation, thereby puncturing the agitators’ balloon.

State police structure has many attributes that, if energized, would have arrested the unfortunate insecurity hovering menacingly over many states in the North.  In fact, the governors of  the states affected by the activities of these devilish bandits would have decisively grabbed the bull by the horns and ensured sanity in their states, instead of waiting endlessly for a Federal Government that is already overwhelmed.

Even the police force at the center is overwhelmed, with reports of inability to pay police personnel drafted to fight bandits in the North. The question is, why would their salaries and other allowances not paid for one year? There is urgent need to restructure the police for more effective management, with the desired objective to curb insecurity that is gradually bringing the country down.