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Partisanship and the police

Successive Inspectors General of the Police, including the current one, have made a more professionalized force as their principal aim upon taking office.  Attaining such…

Successive Inspectors General of the Police, including the current one, have made a more professionalized force as their principal aim upon taking office.  Attaining such a goal would mean well-disciplined personnel that are averse to soiling the time-honoured reputation of the police, and in which the public would have confidence to resolve law and order issues, including inter-party disputes. And it is in politics that the police stand the greatest risk of losing this important perception of neutrality.
The recent despatch of a contingent of police personnel to forcibly disrupt a meeting in Abuja attended by some state governors opposed to the current leadership of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) was a most reprehensive conduct by a law-and-order agency in recent times, and almost certainly illegal. A divisional police officer, armed with what claimed were ‘orders from above’,  led the detachment to breach the premises of Kano State Government Lodge where governors of Kano, Rivers, Jigawa, Niger and Adamawa, members of the so-called G-7, were meeting. A similar episode played itself out earlier in Sokoto, where some of the governors in the group held a meeting.
The House of Representatives has mandated its Committee on Police Affairs to look into such egregious behaviour by the police.  The Senate should also get involved and take a stand because the issue requires concerted effort to nip this troubling trend in the bud before it gets out of hand. The G-7 governors and some of their colleagues have already registered their dismay at the conduct of the police, who appear to be kowtowing to political heads. The governors accused the police of increasingly acting like the armed wing of the PDP. That may be going too far, but such sentiments are shared by many.  And that is where the danger for the police lies. Governor Rabi’u Musa Kwankwaso of Kano State has already made comments about the imperatives of a police force controlled by the states, not the federal.
 The vice president of the Nigeria Labour Congress described the conduct of the police as unacceptable double standards by taking sides in disrupting the peaceful assembly of people, including governors who are themselves the chief security officers of their states, but turning a blind eye to other gatherings of politicians seen as loyal PDP members. The Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) said the police have shown “incessant interference in the affairs of politicians”.  Such searing comments will not endear the police to the public.
The police already suffer from many accounts of involvement in human rights abuses, including arbitrary arrests, torture, extrajudicial killing, and extortion, and providing cover for criminals, including those, like politicians, to escape liability.. An enduring case of the insensitivity of the Police High Command to take action and stop the slide to anarchy in the force is the one concerning the Commissioner of Police in Rivers State, who in is his conduct and public statements, has showed the utmost disrespect to the governor of a state, and that is constitutionally recognised as the chief security officer of the state.
In response to yet another example of the police overstepping their bounds when they tried to prevent the Rovers State governor from going to the Port Harcourt Airport to welcome his guests, the police have banned all political, socio-cultural or religious gatherings within and around airport premises including tarmacs, lounges, and other security points nationwide.  People would be right to question whether this country is a de facto police state now.  This kind of intolerant behaviour should have no room in a practising democracy.  Such sweeping restriction for no valid reason is not just undemocratic; it is unconstitutional and cannot stand the scrutiny of a competent court of law. The police order, in the current circumstances is anything but valid.
The authorities should hasten to arrest the current slide, and endeavour to ensure that police personnel recognise and maintain strict neutrality in their duties where politicians are involved, and to apply the law evenly without bias.

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