Recently, there has been a renewed clamour for the establishment of a state police in the various states of Nigeria, which, in other words, means a situation where the state governments in Nigeria will have absolute control over the police in their states away from the current situation where the Federal Government controls it.
The renewed clamour for the establishment of a state controlled police has arisen from the spate of insecurity across the country which has driven many to think that the situation can be controlled better if states have their own police.
The clamour comes despite the fact that there already exist in all the states, many armed groups acting in those states as vigilantes or in some other capacities. These groups are recognized by both the state and federal governments and mostly work together with the conventional police.
It can therefore be argued that if such recognized outfits are already operating in many states, why the clamour for the establishment of state police in the states?
A major argument against the establishment of such in the states is the fear of abuse. It is feared that state governors may well use the police at their disposal to intimidate political opponents, especially during the period of electioneering.
It is also argued that if some states can use the conventional police to intimidate and bully opponents during elections because of their connections to the centre, only God knows what they can do if they own their own police.
During the last elections in Lagos, Nigerians watched some viral videos of intimidation of voters by security outfits believed to be working for the state government. In some instances even the members of the conventional police were believed to have aided in the snatching of ballot boxes. Thus, many fear, if such brazenness could be displayed by security agents, how would it be when the state governments eventually take complete control of the police?
Those against the establishment of state police also point at the use of the State Independent Electoral Commissions (SIECs) by state governments to rig local government elections. It is a known fact that in all elections conducted by states, what happens is the allocation of votes which at the end of the day, ensures that the party in power enjoys a hundred percent of the votes except where they purposely leave a few seats to the opposition.
Even though federal elections are also rigged, there are however, still many states controlled by opposition parties.
In view of these fears, we believe that Nigeria may indeed not be ripe for the establishment of state police. The various state governments should utilize the services of the various armed groups in their domains in tackling insecurity, especially when they are already working beautifully with the conventional police and other security agencies.
Indeed, if the current synergy between the state vigilantes and the conventional security agencies cannot work, we wonder what else will. Given that Nigeria has proven to be an unserious country, we doubt the ability of the state governments to run their own police without victimization and in view of this, hadn’t we better let the sleeping dog lie?
