Despite stiff opposition from protesters and the Nigerian Governors’ Forum (NGF), the fact that the Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) unit, which was established to replace the recently disbanded Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), began training at the Police Mobile Force (PMF) Training School, Ila Oragun, Osun State and the PMF Training School, Ende Hills, Nasarawa State is revealing and worrisome. According to police public relations officer, DCP Frank Mba, the Nigerian police are partnering with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and other development partners to train the new tactical team of SWAT officers, to operate within very high professional and ethical standards, abide by the rule of law and dictates of best international policing practices. But the creation of SWAT, cognizable from its inauspicious timing is, in range of vision and depth of conception, ill-proportioned to the end it seeks to achieve. It is wrong and ludicrous to attribute the name of SARS as the basis of the public angst and anomie against the Nigerian police. While most Nigerians believe SARS brutality and untoward conduct against innocent Nigerians went on far too long, replacing SARS with SWAT is a wrong diagnosis of the problem that serves no purpose besides qualifying perfectly as much ado about nothing.
As flickers of violence spring forth from different parts and threatening to shut down the country amid the Covid-19 pandemic, there is a growing realization that as a geopolitical unit, Nigeria is systematically being squeezed in from top and bottom. The emergence of an audacity of social media activists under the hashtag #EndSARS protests, is gradually dousing the potency of law enforcement. The security situation in Nigeria is relaying the signs of a nation under siege. It is simply safe to say SWAT speaks to nothing in the myriad of problems bedeviling Nigeria. Of course, creating SWAT in itself has its own collateral damage. Apart from being a waste of precious time and resources that can be spent on more beneficial things to Nigerians, it portrays the president and IGP as indolent and out-of-touch with the reality of the country. This is not a good image for the President and his IGP.
Owing to the prevailing volatile security atmosphere in the country, and the poor preparedness of the law enforcement officers to control street protests, which have been spreading exponentially, perhaps, the time is ripe to revisit the call for the creation of state police in line with best practices in more developed countries. It is just as well that the National Economic Council (NEC) rose from a meeting in Abuja last week and directed the 36 state governors and Minister of Federal Capital Territory (FCT) to negotiate with #EndSARS protesters in their respective states. Specifically, NEC directed the governors to establish judicial panels to investigate police brutality, and raise a fund to compensate victims of brutality by the defunct rogue SARS squad. The judicial panels, which would be set up in all the states would include representatives of youths, students, civil society organizations and would be chaired by a respected retired State High Court Judge. NEC also directed state governors to immediately establish a state-based Special Security and Human Rights Committee to be chaired by the governors, to supervise the newly formed SWAT tactical units and all other security agencies in their states.
It is instructive that the federal government is now directing state governors to deal with the protests in their states at the same time that nearly all state governors in Nigeria today complain of being chief security officers of their states only by designation. Some have been in perennial conflict with their state police commissioners who take directives only from the IGP because of the central command nature of operations. For one thing, the proliferation of these panels and supervisory task forces by federal and state governments has indeed become a major headache for Nigerians. They are now so many that it is difficult to identify which one is genuine and which is not, while Nigerians reel under their jackboot. Such uncertainty, ultimately, not only creates confusion but also constitutes an open visa for chronic opportunism and arm-twisting, especially in a country with an excruciating level of unemployment and insecurity. By implication, rather than boost local and national security, these outfits most certainly complicate it.
Besides, no matter how hard some have tried to rationalize its existence, SWAT is unnecessary. This is against the background of the fact that there are already in existence several institutions saddled with the task of performing those duties for which SWAT is now supposedly set up, most notably security on the roads and traffic control. Traffic control, after all, is one of the important functions of the Nigeria police and there is a specialized unit dedicated to that. Granted SWAT may complement state agencies, the main problem is that such rogue outfits are highly unstructured, lacking adequate institutionalized mechanisms of accountability and as such, no more than platforms for extortion, blackmail and sundry harassment of innocent citizens.
It is against this background that the creation of SWAT appears tenuous and untenable. The desperation to create SWAT despite opposition from state governors who are now being asked to supervise them reveals in bold relief the declining capacity of the Nigerian state to adequately fulfill its security responsibilities to its citizens. For starters, no Nigerian believes IGP Mohammed Adamu, when he says members of the new SWAT team are without cases of human rights violation in their service records; and that no personnel of the defunct SARS will be a member of SWAT. Adamu in a statement said the SWAT officers selected for the training “are young, smart and energetic officers who have acquired not less than seven (7) years working experience with clean service records – no pending disciplinary matters, no record of violation of citizens’ rights or misuse of firearms-and are physically fit to withstand the rigor of SWAT training and operations.”
If such police officers exist, clearly they don’t exist within the ranks of the present Nigerian police force.
Officially, Nigeria is said to require at least 1.2 million men and women for the effective policing of the country, but currently has about 300,000. This is grossly inadequate, with a 300% shortfall. The fact is that a majority of Nigerian police officers and their units have constituted themselves into a serious public nuisance. Many have proved to be highly unprofessional, unduly aggressive, alarmingly corrupt, incurably extortionist and generally unpatriotic. Worse still, most are so grossly underpaid, and as matters stand now, there is need for an urgent intervention to redress the situation. Increasing the number of police officers in the country can only be the starting point. For, if Nigeria has even five million police officers, without effective regulatory instruments, this will still not work.
The way forward, therefore, is for Nigerians to stop playing the ostrich, admit that the nation’s current structure is not truly federal, not working and blatantly deceitful. Therefore, there is a need to decentralize everything, beginning with the police, for greater efficiency. This is pertinent considering that states currently make laws without the corresponding security institutions for the enforcement of these laws. And there is hardly any state in Nigeria today that is not complaining about its inability to control the security agencies in its domain. While some have opposed the strong advocacy for a decentralized police force on account of supposed high level of political intolerance often attributed to state governments, the need for enforcement mechanisms for state laws cannot be overemphasized.
In point of fact though, the Nigerian police are a mirror of society; they are what the larger society is; policemen are also humans. They are sons, fathers, husbands and brothers and fellow citizens in the service of Nigeria. The character of an average Nigerian is reflected in an average policeman. Therefore, if the Nigerian character does not change; the new SWAT will in no time go the way of disrepute like SARS and Mobile Police, (MOPOL) aka “Kill and Go” before it. By no stretch of imagination can the change of name from SARS to SWAT be acceptable as comprehensive police reform by Nigerians who have been exasperated by frequent news of police brutality.
The Nigerian police force has its challenges, including badly-behaved officers. Reforming the Nigerian police therefore must start with character and drastic improvement in the conditions of service of the police because as the scriptures say: whatever a man soweth; that shall he reap and in multiples, at harvest time. Now is the time to re-emphasize unequivocally that it is high time the government considered the difficult terrain and the demoralizing condition under which the Nigerian Police and other law enforcement agencies work. The argument of those who oppose state police is that it is subject to abuse. But has the federal government not been guilty of the same abuse?
What the constitution envisages from the federal government in its control of the police is the giving of “such lawful directions with respect to the maintenance and securing of public safety and public order…” It is also important for the police to remember that its functions are clearly stated in the Constitution and the Police Act. It must, therefore, seek to reinvent itself as a purely professional outfit and servant of the nation only. Pending the creation of state police and the beginning of true federal practice in Nigeria, it is gratifying that House reps have begun reviewing the constitution and the hope is that this anomaly, part of a failed super structure, would be one that the lawmakers would deal with.
