Penultimate week, the Presidential Committee on Police Reforms chaired by Parry Osayande submitted its report to the presidency. GABRIEL EWEPu guages the weighty report and its controversial points and sounds out the positions of key stakeholders.
The long awaited report of the Osayande-led Presidential Committee on Police Reforms was submitted last week to President Goodluck Jonathan. The committee’s recommendations are geared towards total overhaul and transformation of the entire police force for optimal performance. The committee said the state police some Nigerians are clamouring for should not be allowed, because it is not relevant at the moment.
As part of the burning issue for some years now, which has also generated heated debates in many quarters, chairman of the committee, Mr. Parry Osayande said state police is irrelevant, and is not needed. According to Osayande, “State police? It is irrelevant. They cannot afford it. Do you know how much it is to police a country? What we are recommending is that they allow the Police Council to function.
“The president is the chairman of Police Service Commission; governors are members, the IGP is a member, and (governors) will bring their policing plan to the council. They will then decide on what to do. We don’t need state police; the country will break up; take it from me. However, it is a known fact that the Nigeria Police Council is inactive as it hardly meets, and hence does not fulfill its constitutionally assigned roles of administering, organising and generally supervising the Police.”
Osayande said the Nigeria Police Force now harbours officers with corrupt tendencies and bad disciplinary records due to poor discharge of managerial responsibilities at various levels of the police. As a result, Osayande recommended that undesirable elements in the force should be flushed out immediately as they have put the police at its lowest ebb of expected performance.
He said: “These undesirable elements should not be allowed to remain in the Force. In addition, officers with physical and mental disabilities, as well as those with fraudulent educational qualifications, should be kicked out.
“The purge should be on a continuous basis to ensure the sustenance of the vision of the new Nigeria Police Force.”On the Ministry of Police Affairs, the committee frowned at the way it has contributed to the corruption pervading the force, and recommended that it should be scrapped immediately.
It observed that this notwithstanding, the budgeted fund of the police “is unjustifiably domiciled with the Ministry of Police Affairs.
The result is that some of the projects being executed are not priorities to the police. This is an aberration which has led to abuse, misapplication and haemorrhage of the limited resources made available to the police.”
The committee said, “The ministry determines police projects and awards contracts, including organising and running training programmes involving billions of naira with no input from the Police who are the end users. It further held that the Inspector General of Police should exercise the authority through prudent budgeting and input from all the different police commands and formations with the aim of achieving a decentralisation of police resources.”
The committee also recommended the merging of some para-military outfits with the police,”Consequently, the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC) and the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) should immediately merge with the Nigeria Police Force,” the committee declared.
Particularly, the issue of state police has caused division of thoughts, ideologies and arguments across the political divide and amongst intellectuals. Now, the committee has also recommended that state police is not needed, because it is irrelevant, rather the police force should be reorganised.
Stakeholders Reactions
After this recommendation were made, Nigerians have been reacting. Prominent among them are the retired Inspectors-General of Police who kicked against the establishment of state police.
According to Gambo Jimeta, who spoke on behalf of the retired IGs, “No; we don’t support state police because some of us have lived through the history of this country to have experienced the sort of horrible things that happened when various police forces were in the hands of various people in this country. At that time, people from other parts of the country could not freely go to other parts of the country for trade, political campaigns.
“The local police forces were bastardized. They were used for all sorts of heinous things. So, at the last London Conference, before independence, it was decided that one single police force for the country should be created. It was done, among other things, for the security of the minority people wherever they happen to be.
“People have forgotten where we came from, when Zik could not go to Katsina or Maiduguri to campaign, when Ahmadu Bello could not go to Enugu or Lagos, when Akintola, Awolowo could not go to some parts of the country.
In order to put all these things behind us, our founding fathers in the constitution entrenched one federal force that will be responsible for the rights given to the citizens of this country wherever they happen to be.We oppose fractionalisation of the police and the enforcement of laws of this country.”
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