Nigeria Society for Criminology cautions against hasty establishment of state police

…says good governance, social justice, social protection solutions to insecurity

The Nigeria Society for Criminology (NSC) has cautioned against the hasty creation of State Police, stressing the need for a piece of national legislation to limit the abuse of State Police and check system of local oppression of Nigerians.

As the possibility of Nigeria having a State Police gathers momentum, Etannibi Alemika, Smart Otu, and Lanre Ikuteyijo, all professors stated that certain things should be in place before the establishment of the State policing.

While speaking at the webinar organised by the Executive of the Nigeria Society for Criminology entitled “Perspectives on State Policing” the trio highlighted both the benefits (improves security, provision of job opportunities, promotes true federalism, enhances local) and challenges (decentralised police system may breed antagonistic competitions among forces, varied standards and processes of operations, partisanship and capture by local dominant powers

Others include poor coordination of information sharing and cross-border operations across jurisdiction; displacement of crime across jurisdiction) associated with the establishment of state police.

They, however, cautioned on the need to seek expert inputs in drafting a framework that would be suitable based on research evidence.

While both the Board of Trustee Chairman of the Society, Alemika and Ikuteyijo, maintained that the problems encountering the Nigerian Police must be solved to make it more efficient and effective, they warned against any rush to establish State Police without due diligence in order to reproduce the same structural, organizational and individual challenges which the Nigeria Police are faced with.

Specifically, Alemika noted that “Police is not a transformative agency because its role is to reproduce the prevailing social order and repress dissent against it”.

He noted that solutions to crimes and criminality “are to be sought within the social, political and economic structures that cause and reproduce them for the benefit of the economic, political and social power-holders in Nigeria”

“Police and policing reforms will not guarantee security and development without good governance, efficient public service delivery of essential services such as education, health care, shelter, water, sanitation, communication and transportation by the government as well as opportunity for meaningful employment and income, social recognition, equality and justice, social protection from deprivations.

He also said that Police performance and relations with citizens reflect the extent of good governance and the performance of government, of which the police force is an agent.

“The quest for good policing must be an intrinsic element of struggle for the entrenchment of a social democratic political system and a developed economy managed and advanced for the welfare, security, and dignity of citizens.

“Without scrupulous interrogation or scrutiny of the constitutional provisions, bills and laws to establish state police and the adequate constitutional limitations to prevent egregious abuse of police powers, the clamour for state police by the power-holders may pass for them to realise their latent aim of capturing the state and turning the country into a Police State”, they said.

Oludayo Tade, President Nigeria Society of Criminology, in his remarks, stated that one of the mandates of the society is to guide Government in the formulation of appropriate policies to check criminality and criminal behavior and improve Nigeria’s criminal justice system.

Tade, a professor, noted that the Nigeria Society for Criminology is ready to partner with relevant Government Organ and Agencies to review and recommend a suitable model that would improve the security situation in the Country.