www.yesneko.com The Nigerian Police and Our Political Twilight Zone by Mobolaji E. Aluko, PhD [email protected] Introduction ------------ On Thursday, November 4, 1999, seven policemen were reported murdered in cold-blood ostensibly by rampaging Egbesu-inspired youths from the Ijaw community town of Odi in Kolobuma/Opukoma Council of Bayelsa State. The names of the policemen were [Reference 1]: 1. CSP Thomas Jokotola from Osun State 2. DSP George Nwine from Rivers State 3. St. Emmanuel Bako from Bauchi State 4. CPL Ayuba Silas from Kaduna State 5. PC Shaibu Zamani from Kaduna State 6. CPL Elias Bitrus from Borno State 7. CPL Robinson Obazee from Edo State. Four days later, this time in Kaiama, Bayelsa State, on Monday night, November 8, 1999 to be exact, three additional policemen were murdered again apparently by Odi youths: 1. Sgt. Alhaji Atabor from Kogi State 2. PC Stephen Abu from Cross-Rivers State 3. PC Umoh Ukbo from Cross-Rivers State On November 10, 1999, an angry President Obasanjo, from far-away Abuja, fired off a letter to Bayelsa Governor Diepreye Alamieyeseigha giving him a two-week ultimatum to find the killers or else face a state of emergency declaration. However on November 19 or thereabout, five full days to the expiration of the ultimatum, Obasanjo lost patience and ordered soldiers into Odi. Led by one Lt.-Colonel Agbabiaka (a Yoruba), the apparently 300-strong contingent of soldiers obviously overshot (?) its brief and levelled the town to the ground except for a church and bank building, and killed at least 375 people and a larger number of goats and chickens in the process. It is instructive to note that none of the policemen killed was from Odi visit us at www.yesneko.com www.yesneko.com or Bayelsa State, and one would not be surprised if not one of the soldiers sent was from anywhere near there. The questions that we must then ask ourselves are as follows: Would those ten policemen have been murdered if they had come from Odi town or environs? Would the soldiers have levelled their own homes if they had been from Odi? It is quite possible that they would have, but it is most unlikely. It is with that premise that I write this Sunday Musings, providing some historical background as to how we got the way we are with respect to who controls the Police in a Federated Nigeria, briefly describing the present situation, and offering some suggestions as to solutions. Some historical notes on the control of the Police in Nigeria ------------------------------------------------------------- The incidence in Odi and the raging battles between the police and the Odua Peoples Congress (OPC) and Area Boys in Lagos have brought into greater discussion where the control of the Police in Nigeria should really be vested, with Lagos Governor Bola Ahmed Adekunle Tinubu leading the demand for state control and local recruitment of the policemen. But how did we get to where we are? Serious discussion about who controls the Police in the putative independent Nigeria began in earnest with the Willinks Minorities Commission which visited Nigeria from late 1957 to early 1958 and reported to the September 29 - October 27 1958 Constitutional Conference in London. It is instructive to look at the history books, beginning with some quotes [Reference 2]: QUOTE "In any event, the [WILLINK] Commission concluded that the minorities could be mad to feel secure without new regions. It recommended some formal constitutional safeguards to allay fears. Ultimate control of the police should rest in federal hands, though there should be consultation with regional officials concerning the use of the police. The theory was that the risk to minorities came from regional governments, whereas the Federal government was more likely to be multitribal and therefore neutral. The Commission also recommended that the Constitution guarantee certain fundamental human rights - freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom from discrimination, and the right to a fair trial, for example. With some modifications, those recommendations were incorporated into the Constitution......[THUS] The federal power over the police, for example, stems directly from the fear of ethnic minorities within the regions that a police responsible to a regional government dominated by a particular ethnic or religious group might prove to be an instrument of repression and political aggrandizement" UNQUOTE Is it therefore not ironical that forty-one years later, a minority group of Ijaws (at least minority relative to the Big Three Hausa/Fulani, Igbo visit us at www.yesneko.com www.yesneko.com and Yoruba) becomes the victim of a backlash of their victimization of a police force that was ostensibly constructed in a manner to protect them? In fact, at the 106-person 1958 Constitutional Conference at which decisions which finally featured in the 1960 Constitution were virtually all settled, the issue of who controls the Police was one of the most important [Reference 3]: QUOTE "On the thorny question of the Police, the Conference decided that there should be a single police force under an Inspector-General responsible to the Federal Government. But realising that the bulk of the force would continue to be stationed in the Regions, the Conference agreed that each Regional contigent should be under a [POLICE] Commissioner, who though under the general supervision of the Inspector-General, would be responsible for recruiting members of his own contingent as far as practicalbe from within the Region, thus ensuring that constables posted to an area would be those who understood the local language.......The administration of the Force should be the responsibility of a Police Council." UNQUOTE Therefore, it is clear that in its wisdom, the 1960 Constitution struck a delicate balance between allaying the fears of minorities as well as ensuring that the police in the regions were not completely aliens in their regions of work, with LANGUAGE being one clear index of such familiarity or alienation. Forty years later, what has changed? First was the creation of more states - 3 regions in 1951 till 1960 (North, East and West at Independence) became 4 in 1963 (with creation of MidWest), and then 12 states in 1967 (under Gowon, just before the secession of Biafra), 19 in 1976 (under Murtala Muhammed/Obasanjo), to 21 (in 1987) and then 30 in 1991 (both under Babangida; who catapulted the number of local governments to 589) and finally to 36 in 1996 (under Abacha). Next was the creation of more local governments - from roughly 40 provinces in 1960 to 301 in 1979 to 774 in 2000. With this proliferation of states and local governments came a concomittant greater ethnic homogeneity in each administrative unit. Is this "minorities" fear of repression therefore still relevant today if local governments or states now assumed or even shared control of the police with the Federal government? The other thing that changed of course happened on January 15, 1966, when the military took over governance of the country and because of its inherently unitary command structure, destroyed the delicate federal constitution which had been negotiated prior to independence. No longer was the police force the dominant civil force, but rather the Army, Navy and Airforce, relegating the police force to playing catch-up ever since. While the Ironsi/Gowon regimes maintained a semblance of regionalism by deploying military state governors to their own regions of origin, the visit us at www.yesneko.com www.yesneko.com Murtala Mohammed/Obasanjo regime, in its missionary zeal to "homogenize" the country, in general deployed state governors far away from their states of origin, resulting, in some quarters, in feelings of internal colonization. This same over-centralized, homogenizing, internal colonization was extended to the Police Force, and concretized in the 1979 Constitution handed over by Obasanjo to the country, wherein in Sections 194 - 196, we have the following: QUOTE Chapter VI, Part III B. The Nigeria Police Force Establishment of Nigeria Police Force 194 (1) There shall be a police force for Nigeria, which shall be styled the Nigeria Police Force, and subject to the provision of this section no other police force shall be established for the Federation or any part thereof. (2) Subject to the provisions of this Constitution - (a) the Nigeria Police Force shall be organised and administered in accordance with such provisions as may be prescribed by an Act of the National Assembly; (b) the members of the Nigeria Police Force shall have such powers as may be conferred upon them by law; (c) the National Assembly may make provisions for branches of the Nigeria Police Force forming part of the armed forces of the Federation or for the protection of harbours, waterways, railways and airfields. 195 (1) There shall be an Inspector-General of Police who, subjected to section 196(2) of this Constitution, shall be appointed by the President, and a Commissioner of Police for each State, who shall be appointed by the Police Service Commission. (2) The Nigeria Police Force shall be under the command of the Inspector-General of Police, and any contingents of the Nigeria Police Force stationed in a State shall, subject to the authority of the Inspector-General of Police, be under the command of the Commissioner of Police of that State. (3) The President or such other Minister of the Government of the Federation as he may authorise in that behalf may give to the Inspector-General of Police such lawful directions with respect to the maintenance and securing of public safety and public order as he may consider necessary, and the Inspector-General of Police shall comply with those directions or cause them to be complied with.