The SARS epidemic is a classic business and management case of forgetting the “problem to be solved”. The major reason SARS was formed was when Col. Rindam, a Nigerian Army Colonel was killed by police officers at a checkpoint in Lagos. That led to a faceoff between the Nigerian Police and the Nigerian Army that eventually made the police scamper from the streets. To avoid Marshall Law and to curb excessive robbery, SARS was mainly formed in 1992 as an undercover and for anti-robbery. This was in the 90s, the global crack cocaine and guns era. In other news, current data shows us that there has been a steady decline in armed robbery in urban Nigeria. SARS definitely can’t take credit for the decline in robbery!
The reason for the decline in robbery isn’t because of SARS but that today’s everyday cars (the type used for Ubers) and higher models especially for robbers to snatch are more security equipped and traceable. People’s homes and wallets are more cashless. So snatching cars, invading middle and upper class homes or pulling off bank heists (which were more popular decades ago) are getting riskier and pointless. So those who could have been robbers now have alternative crimes that are more socially acceptable (such as internet fraud, kidnapping, product counterfeiting, terrorism, drug dealing, politics, prostitution and even political thuggery).
Take for example; according to a Guardian Newspaper publication, between June 2011 and the end of March 2020, at least $18.34 million has been paid to kidnappers as ransom. Even more frightening is that the larger proportion of that figure (just below $11 million), was paid out between January 2016 and March 2020, indicating that kidnapping is becoming more lucrative. Such crimes pay more than robbery and less riskier and easy to get away with. It makes us question the problem that SARS currently really solves as against the one it creates.
An average price for an AK47- Assault Kalashnikov rifle, (the gun most widely used among the Nigerian police) is $600, that’s over N250, 000. And the carrier, the police sergeant on grade level 5 earns approximately 48,000 Naira, which is $ 126 monthly. Therefore, the salary of an average policeman is worth less than an AK 47 rifle by over 500 percent. How do you give a hungry and broken man man’s most powerful firepower and expect him to act right?
As Wike reinstated, they have become criminal allies and daylight perpetrators’ themselves with it. But beyond just being inhumane, there is a science to that. That science is economical and also psychological and mental. To be a SARS official comes with a deadly state of mind; the peril of their job leaves a psychological effect on the subconscious of these officers. The outcome we see is extra judicial killings and torture. The truth is that official jobs SARS officers’ carry out is not shared in the public domain.
Generally, there are 4 reasons why people join the military, police, or paramilitary:
1. It is a family tradition.
2. The person is patriotic and wants to serve his country.
3. Because of the money / high rate of unemployment.
4. The person is looking for a legal means to kill other people. We forget that there is a fetish to number 4. Category 4 individuals are violent and brutish in nature that is so hard to control. For them it is a habit, the way we pick up habits like smoking and drinking. When they are no criminals they may turn to innocent citizens.
That is why MI5, MI6 & CIA ensure their officers are of sound mind and can be controlled via a methodology. Yes, data gives you an idea of what is going on but the social aspect points you in the right direction. There is a habit out of control and laying someone off or redeploying without rehabilitation is a time bomb. Especially, then they have grown beyond the control of their subjects in the police force.
If you’ve ever tried to report a crime (whether impunity, extortion or brutality) by one of its own to a police division, you’d see that they are even feared in the stations. Non SARS police colleagues, even seniors dread them. They have outgrown their institutions. They are strong men. And that’s the point. Africa has one of strongest, most prolific and intelligent men who produce unintelligent results when in a group or institution. So Obama in 2009 while on a presidential visit to Ghana reminded us all “Africa does not need strong men. It needs strong institutions”.
Back to my core; management and business; things like bad policing, bad governance or bad businesses is a case of organizational leadership versus personal leadership with selfish motives. It’s the absence of collective intelligence. It’s a case of waste (ever wondered the metrics for joining the police; who applies or even makes it there on merit? Ever wondered what metrics criteria for joining or being promoted are, or the cost price of an AK 47 and why every police seems to have one? Even rich countries, except their SWATs don’t all give their police on regular patrol an expensive assault weapon such as an AK 47!). Who advises and makes money from such supplies? That explains what corruption does to a business case.
The entire Nigerian police are wasteful. Its leadership is unskilled and distracted. Those who are the top of the Nigerian police supposed to drive the goal top down are busy playing Federal politics for favours and economic gains and really know to not bother the lower grade police they have helped impoverish. So every checkpoint, police van and bus drive-by is a business unit. Primarily away from security, they are on the streets hustling for their own crumbs. It’s no secret. Their bosses know too. The entire SARS extortion is a business model with revenue, cost of sales, profit and remittance to members of its organogram. It’s an interesting business model for Macroeconomics.
It should be taught in Harvard. SARS still remains tactically genius in its core but played out. With genuine reforms could have been intelligent high flyers that they were. But their goals are now individualistic and evil. It’s the dilemma of having massive gun power with ulterior motives in a world of poverty and bad leadership. It could have been an African pride. Africans have potentials of high flyers, but we stay collectively low. Even when we individually rise, it only makes us the tallest midgets of the world. It’s not enough to have a good intention, to launch it smartly, to be individually upright or to lead. No matter how good we are or what we do, when we step back, even before our job is done, what we should really ask is “what was the problem solved” with who we are?
Beyond just banning SARS, this time it has to be followed through; with an Executive Order, a Legislative Action & a Judicial Panel of enquiry set up to compensate victims and to prosecute those found wanting in its impunity and brutality. And in parallel, rehabilitation and a real police reform. Nothing more, nothing less!! That’s the only true way to #EndSars and gives the outcome useful data to the management body of knowledge.
