Centenary: Nigeria Police Force, the journey so far

Emeka Ibemere

Though, the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) is older than the amalgamation project, having come earlier before the political marriage of the Southern and the Northern protectorates. The NPF and Nigeria share common things together-stunt growth.

However, within this criss-cross weave of history, a lot have gone down in the last 100 years. Today after 153 years, NPF is now a typical Nigeria society after suffered severely under the jackboots of several military interregnums that devastated the progress of the nation, remained in a terrible sorry state of affairs.

Going down memory lane, next month April, the Nigeria police will clock exactly 153 years having been established on April 1861, by the British Consul in Lagos after months of applying for permission to the Principal in London to establish a Consular Guard. After the Consul obtained authorization from the Principle in London and formed the Consular Guard, it started with 30 men.

 Two years later in 1863, the 30 men became known as the ‘Hausa Guard’. According to reports, it was further regularized in 1879 by an Ordinance creating a Constabulary for the Colony of Lagos. But it would be proper to state that the original Nigeria police took off in 1930, when the British Government in 1900 following the transfer of administration from the Royal Niger Company proclaimed protectorates of Northern and Southern Nigeria. Prior to then, the Royal Niger Constabulary was splinted into the Northern Nigeria Police Force and the Northern Nigeria Regiment.

In the South, the Lagos Police Force and part of the Niger Coast Constabulary became the southern Nigeria Police Force in 1906. So, when the Northern and Southern Nigeria were amalgamated in 1914, their police forces were not merged until 1930, forming the NPF, with its headquarters in Lagos. During the colonial period, most police were associated with local governments (native authorities). In the 1960s, under the First Republic, these forces were first regionalised and later nationalised to have what today is called the Nigeria Police Force.

The NPF has over the years, performed conventional police functions and was responsible for internal security generally. It has supported the prison, immigration, and customs services; and for performing military duties within or outside Nigeria as directed.

During the era of Alhaji Shehu Shagari, there were plans to expand the force to 200,000. But by 1983, according to the federal budget, the strength of the NPF was almost 152,000. It was then estimated to be between 20,000 and 80,000. Reports claimed that there were more than 1,600 police stations nationwide.

Almost 100 years down the line, the challenges facing the NPF are enormous. The Nigeria police still battle with issues of arms, operational vehicles, remuneration; training, welfare, incentives and motivations. Police officers were not usually armed but were issued weapons when required for specific missions or circumstances.

The 1979 constitution provided for a Police Service Commission that was responsible for NPF policy, organization, administration, and finance (except for pensions).

 In February 1989, military dictator, Ibrahim Babangida abolished the Police Service Commission and established the Nigeria Police Council in its stead, and placed it directly under the presidential control. The new council was chaired by the president; the chief of General Staff, the minister of internal affairs, and the police inspector general were members. Successive military regimes in Nigeria destroyed the NPF when it was politicised by the military that ordinarily supposed to institutionalize it by promoting the force, the military relegated it to the background. The army then took over the maintenance of internal order, peace, discipline and security.

1986 saw the reorganized of the NPF nationwide and it was pieced into seven area commands, which superseded a command structure corresponding to each of the States of Nigeria. Each command was under a commissioner of police and was further divided into police provinces and divisions under local officers.

Babangida’s government midwived the 1986 NPF reorganization and that was the beginning of the collapse of police structure, discipline and culture of the police.

 It created a tension between the police and the army. It was reported that a superintendent was suspended at a time for grumbling that the army had appropriated police functions and kept police pay low, and there were fights between police and army officers over border patrol jurisdiction.  Stakeholders say the corruption in the police force started with the low budget of the police. About 2,000 constables and 400 senior police officers were dismissed by mid-1987, leaving senior police officers disgruntled.

During the military era, between 1984 and 1988, the NPF operated with budget of N360 million to N380 million range, and in 1988 increased to N521 million. More notable were large capital expenditure infusions of N206 million in 1986 and N260.3 million in 1988, representing 3.5 and 2.5 percent of total federal capital expenditures in those years.

These paltry sums were used to acquire new communications equipment, transport, and weapons to combat the rising crime wave. Early 1990 despite these purchases, an NPF study in late 1990 concluded that the force's budget must double to meet its needs. Yet nothing was done to that effect

The military again in1989 carried another reorganization which was announced after the Armed Forces Ruling Council's acceptance of a report by Rear Admiral Murtala Nyako. In 1989 the NPF also created a ‘Quick Intervention Force’ in each state. The intervention force was separate from the mobile police units, specifically to monitor political events and to quell unrest during the transition to civil rule.

The Police Mobile Force was established as a strike or Anti-riot unit under the control of the Inspector-General of Police to counter incidents of civil disturbance. It was designated to take over operations of major crisis where conventional police units cannot cope. By 1999, when the former President Olusegun Obasanjo came to power, a lot of damage had been done to the force.

The Police Service Commission (PSC), the civilian supervision body on the police had lost control of managing the NPF. The organization which is responsible for appointment, promotion, and discipline of all police officers including the Inspector General of Police’s appointment has been politicized and party members were given the appointment of the chairman of the PSC. Police Service commission and the Inspector-General of Police failed to turn the police around and enable it to function to face the 21st century policing. Within this period, the NPF experienced endemic problems with recruitment, training, inefficiency, and indiscipline, and it lacked expertise in specialized fields because quota system and federal character crept into the force.  Corruption and dishonesty were widespread; engendering a low level of public confidence, failure to report crimes, and tendencies to resort to self-help becomes the order of the day. Nigeria Police became brutal, unjust and unprofessional. Bribery, accidental discharge and jungle justice, many captured suspects die in police custody or are ‘shot while attempting to escape’ stories took the centre stage of policing, as innocent souls died mysteriously in police stations. Case files started developing wings and justice was sold to the highest bidder.

 Reports say, Olusegun Obasanjo’s attempt to expand the NPF by reducing the recruitment age from nineteen to seventeen and by enrolling demobilized soldiers, couldn’t scale through and it failed. The use of excessive violence in quelling student disorders led the AFRC in June 1986 to direct the police to use only rubber bullets in containing student riots. Reports of police collusion with criminals were common, as were official appeals to police officers to change their attitude toward the public, to be fair and honest, and to avoid corrupt practices. In an effort to reduce bribery and to make identification of offenders easier, police officers on beats and at checkpoints were not allowed to carry more than N5 on their person. It would be recalled that in September 2005, Nigeria withdrew 120 police officers serving in the UN Congo mission because of accusations that they had engaged in sexual abuses. Lacking training and retraining of officers, senior police officers introduced Force as a means of fighting the 21^st century crime wave and almost all the state in the federation adopted the ‘Fire for Fire approach. Stakeholders say that lack of training of officers led to extrajudicial killing by the police to cover the smoking screen or a way of dealing with people the police believe to be criminals.

On a website, the Nigeria Police Watch, it was discovered that a lot of Police reforms have been going on since independence yet the police has refused to be responsible to its challenges of maintaining peace and order professionally. Currently the government is currently attempting to reform the police. It was reported that a White Paper with 79 recommendations for improving the police force was made some years back but it hasn’t been considered by the National Assembly. It is expected that it would be turned into a Police Reform Bill. Issues like; poor remuneration of officers allegedly topped the bill. Since its inception as NPF, over 16 persons have headed the NPF as its Inspector General of Police starting from, IGP Louis Edet (1964–1966), to IGP Kam Salem (1966–1975), IGP Mohammadu Dikko Yusufu (1975–1979), and IGP Adamu Suleiman (1979–1981). Other are  IGP Sunday Adewusi (1981–1983), IGP Etim Inyang (1985–1986), IGP Muhammad Gambo-Jimeta (1986–1990), and IGP Aliyu Atta  (1990–1993), IGP Ibrahim Coomassie (1993–1999), IGP Musiliu Smith   (1999–2002). Also included are IGP Mustafa Adebayo Balogun (2002–2005), IGP Sunday Ehindero (2005–2007), IGP Mike Mbama Okiro (2007–20090), IGP Ogbonna Okechukwu Onovo (2009-2010), IGP Hafiz Ringim (2010 - Jan 2012), and IGP Mohammed D Abubakar (2012 - Jan 2014)

Some commentators have argued that the history of the Nigerian Police was a history of nobility, service and sacrifice. It had a glorious past. In recent years, however, the police have come to be known as the bastion of illegality, inefficiency and institutional decadence.

One commentator said. “It is hard to tell when this negative transformation began; and harder still to pinpoint when the Nigerian Police moved from being a pillar of grace and service to a cathedral of debauchery. Be that as it may, it must be painful to be thought of as the alpha and the omega of all that is wrong with Nigeria”.

“How sad it must be to know that day after day twenty-four hours a day, when your countrymen see you they transfer unhealthy thoughts to you. It must be awful, to know that no matter what you do in terms of effort and sacrifice the vast majority of the populace think of you as member of a group that is corrupt and easily corrupted; that you are lazy and loaf around most of the time; that you live a shitty life and therefore must be shitty. It is sad and unfortunate that of all the arms of the security services, the Police have become the butt of jokes and vengeance”.

Writing further, he explained. “A whole lot of people are after our policemen and women, that is armed robbers. You get the feeling that these armed hooligans would love to do nothing but have the police for target practice. The Nigerian armed robbers have better guns and ammunitions and even better tactics than the Nigerian Police. They drive better and faster cars than the police. And they have better pay and better incentives than the police. Any wonder then that they typically outman, outgun and outsmart the police? If the general populace doesn’t have respect for the police, why would the criminal elements within the society”?

“What do we expect from a Police that had its members in bathroom slippers, torn boots, and tattered uniforms? What do we expect from a police that is vastly under compensated? What do we expect from a police that is vastly understaffed and poorly trained? What do we expect from a police that has no adequate housing and adequate mode of transportation? Yet, day after day we expect them to heroically chase after armed robbers and white collar criminals. We expect them not to ask for or to take bribes to augment their paltry income. We expect them to keep us safe. I will submit and again, vigorously submit that that’s a tall order”.

According to the commentator, Nigeria deserves the type of police they have. He disclosed that these men and women were not recruited or selected from the Mars or from the Moon. “They are selected and recruited from the general population pool a pool that is poorly educated; starved of basic human security; starved of adequate infrastructures; and starved of good governance. Where are these men and women supposed to take their cues from when the Inspector General of Police, the state governors, ministers, commissioners, head of parastatals, and the chief of private and public enterprises are all corrupt? You expect the police to be different? Oh, no”! He stated further,

“We deserve the police we have. In other words, the Nigerian Police Force is a reflection of the Nigerian society. The police are bad because we are bad as a nation. To change the police we have to change our orientation and national culture. In order for the police “to serve and protect with integrity,” we must honour them; we must provide adequate leadership, adequate compensation and proper training. We must take care of the men and women who give their lives in the service of our country. Has any Nigerian ever said “Thank You!” to a police officer for a job well done”? 

Speaking on the decay in the police force in post independence, Alhaji Abubakar Tsav, former Lagos State Commissioner of Police, and social critic of repute said that the situation in the Nigeria police has been terrible. According to him, the NPF has developed in size and literacy since independence but averred that its overall performance and productivity has diminished as a result of institutionalized corruption, poor funding, interference with police administration and ineffective supervision of the junior ranks. “People seeking recruitment into the police must pay bribes”, Tsav added. “Another issue is inadequate recruitment and training of quality man-power. Police Colleges are neglected. In the past, we had workshops for servicing of police vehicles manned by trained mechanics. We also had fuel dumps for fuelling police vehicles. All these are no longer there anymore”.

According to the ex-cop, the worsen situation was that vehicles acquired for; or donated to the police are always not accompanied with spare- parts or fuelling arrangements. “Often times, policemen on patrol are compelled to take bribes for fuelling of patrol vehicles. The situation is terribly bad”.

Last January the President Goodluck Jonathan admitted that Nigeria police needs transformation. The president disclosed that a total sum of N1.5 trillion would be spent over the next six years in order to transform the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) for effective service delivery and as well as enhance their operational capacity in line with the transformation agenda of the federal government.

Jonathan, who was represented by the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Senator Bala Mohammed, stated made the declaration while declaring open the Police Service Commission (PSC) 2014 retreat in Markurdi, Benue State.

The president revealed that 60 per cent of the funding would come from government sources, while the Organised Private Sector and other development partners would contribute 40 per cent. He further disclosed that the National Economic Council (NEC) had also approved that one percent of the monthly allocations meant for the states be deducted and used to fund the police reforms.

“The statutory funding of the police reform programme is in line with the provisions of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and the sum of N1.5 trillion expected over the next six years would help to transform the police for more efficient and effective services,” he said.

Jonathan recalled that his recent statement at the Nigeria Police Academy, Wudil, and Kano State during the passing out parade of the ASPs and Cadet Inspectors that government was committed to ensuring the continued improvement of the quality, capacity and numerical strength available to the Force and other security agencies.

He promised that the NPF must be repositioned to deliver on its mandate as the lead agency in the maintenance of internal security.

According him, the theme of the retreat: “Sustaining Nigeria Police Reforms” is apt, as it will discuss issues such as Inter-Agency Collaboration: Police Partnership as well as the Impact of Police Reform in the Administration of Justice. “These are important topics which, if well treated at this retreat will provide a framework for better and enhanced national security,” he stressed.

Speaking further, the president urged the participants to pay special attention to the papers to be presented by experts with understanding of the security challenges facing the nation and the role of well-motivated Police Force in effectively combating them. “Government considers it a sacred and important duty to guarantee the security and welfare of our people as well as protect the sovereignty of our country. The police have an important role to play in this respect.

“I want also emphasise that the police reform programme is intended to adequately equip the Force for this role, as the government will not tolerate excuses for failure”, he said.

Earlier, the acting Governor of Benue State, Steven Lawani, stated that the state was not in support of the establishment of state police in the country, as the time is not ripe.

Lawani however, called on the NPF to redouble its effort in stemming criminal activities especially now that political happenings would soon be at their peak in preparation for the 2015 general elections.

On his part, the Inspector General of Police (IG), Mr. Mohammed Abubakar, called for delegated powers to the Police Commissioners and the Assistant Inspectors-General of Police (AIGs) to promote any deserving junior police personnel since they already had powers to discipline. On his own, the Chairman of the PSC, Mr. Mike Okiro, said the outcome of the retreat would form the basis for the blueprint of the present administration of the PSC.