While many Nigerians are calling for establishment of community policing as the solution to the insecurity bedeviling the country, Ibrahim Shekarau, a former governor of Kano State, has said politicians must not be allowed to nominate anybody into such outfit, and that funding must be reasonable to achieve the desired result.
In a monitored interview, Shekarau, who gave a personal experience with the Community police- Hisbah guards- he floated when he was governor, said it is only such an arrangement that could see Nigeria out of the security challenge it is going through.
He also noted that there seems to be a huge question on value system in Nigeria, which has worsened the security crisis.
“There seems to be erosion of leadership values and leaders are no longer promoting values that were held sacrosanct in Nigeria years back,” he said.
According to him, “The challenges are quite enormous and multidimensional. The most important being that of leadership. You envision what you want to achieve. For instance, the current administration gave us its syllabus or marking scheme, focusing on three major areas- Security, fight against corruption and economy.
“When you talk about security, the issue of community policing is key.”
Giving instance of how community policing can work without being politicized, he said: “Hisbah in Kano was not politicized. We eliminated 90 percent of the vices in the state at that time. The earlier we understand this, the better for us. State governments have to be directly involved in terms of funding. The local governments, traditional institutions and the community must work together to ensure the success of community policing.
“We recruited responsible, respected individuals as members of the Hisbah guards in every ward and we were paying them. People preferred to go to Hisbah offices to report their cases rather than going to the regular police station because of the level of confidence they had in Hisbah guards.
The trouble with community policing
Shekarau pointed out that the major problem with the community policing is that politicians are nominating their thugs as members of the team, and they hijack the good project and convert it into a tool to fight political opponents. He said that when he instituted Hisbah in Kano, no prominent politician nominated anybody into it. It was controlled by traditional and community leaders.
Financing, a huge impediment
The former governor and serving senator also pointed out that poor financing hinders the performance of the outfits.
“We were giving them (Hisbah) up to N5million every month at their central office to help their operations. The local and state governments jointly funded it, but today, I hear they are being given N250,000 (Two hundred and fifty thousand naira) only or thereabout. You do not need to go to school to know that that amount (of money) is far too small to get result.”
Why OPC, Vigilance groups are not community police
Any community police outfit or scheme should and must be a creation of the law and aligns with the Constitution of Nigeria. Self-help groups such as vigilantes, Oodua People’s Congress (OPC), among others, which are not backed by the law, are illegal.
“Certainly, if you allow these vigilantes, they would be found wanting and there would be head on collision with security agents. They should not even attempt to arrest anybody because they are not recognised by law to do so.
“During the Obasanjo administration, he told the then Inspector-General of Police to proscribe OPC, Hisbah and some other groups. But we challenged the Federal Government up to the Supreme Court and won the case, and the court actually said they should pay compensation,” he said.
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