About one week ago as of this writing, the then acting president, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, ordered the Inspector-General of Police, Ibrahim Idris Kpotun, to re-organise the Special Anti-Robbery Squad, famously known by its acronym of SARS. The IG instantly trivialised the presidential order by renaming it Federal Anti-Robbery Squad, FSARS. Order obeyed. Finito.
I thought what the acting president wanted was for the outfit to be made more human, if not humane, and public-friendly. I thought the outfit, in so far as it is of the Nigeria Police Force, was federal. Osinbajo knows that. He did not ask for a change of name. He asked for a shake up in the operations of the squad throughout the country to ensure that its personnel act within the limits of the law to win and sustain public confidence and support in their admittedly tough task of curtailing armed robbery incidents in the country.
The vice-president took the step in response to a persistent public outcry over the activities of SARS. There have, in fact, been calls for it to be disbanded to end the traumatisation of the public by some of its overzealous and unscrupulous personnel. Surely, the IG is not, or cannot claim to be, unaware of public complaints over the activities of the special police outfit set up to make us relatively safe on the roads, in our offices and in our homes. It would take more, much more than the change of name to create a new image of the outfit in the minds of the public.
The Nigeria Police Force is a civil force. It is, to use a political metaphor, the grass roots security outfit closest to the people. But the force has always had a bad image. People, particularly motorists, have been killed at check points for failing to part with as little as five naira. Instead of people running to the police when they have problems, they either run away from them or take the law into their hands. There must be too many rotten eggs in the force.
Some years ago, the NPF tried to clean up its image and market itself as the good neighbour next door. There were campaign posters and bill boards telling the public: the police is your friend. The campaign urged the public to see police men and women as friends, not foes. Do not run away from the police, it said. Embrace it, cooperate with its personnel who are there to serve you and enjoy their protection, it said.
I do not have an empirical evidence for this but I do not think the campaign quite achieved its objective. Police-public relationship is still hostile and antagonistic. A policeman on duty believes he is forced to serve the public in a way that demands personal compensation over and above his pay. Our policemen and women do not take pride in their work. They seem to resent it. If you hear them at check points, it’s obvious they resent the fact that while your boys dey here suffering to serve you, you are out there enjoying your life. It would seem that nothing fundamental has changed in how the police personnel view their role and their relationship with the public. And that is the problem. And let no one think it is a problem that would respond to a cynical change of name of the special anti-robbery outfit.
The vice-president put his finger on a fundamental problem in the country’s policing system. And that is the need, an urgent one at that, to begin the process of changing the attitude and the professional orientation of our police personnel. The problems of the force are deep-rooted in our culture and the history of the force itself. The NPF was a colonial security outfit. Its personnel then viewed themselves as serving the colonial authorities rather than their own people. They treated their fellow Nigerians harshly and mercilessly. That attitude has survived to this day. From all indications, the police personnel see themselves as uniformed men and women in the service of the government. Their attitude towards the public is nasty and often brutish.
In the second republic, we contended with the unfriendly attitude of the mobile police personnel, nick-named Kill and Go because they placed themselves above the law and believed they had the right to do with and to the public as they wished. And there were no consequences. The public is worried stiff that FSARS has more or less degenerated to that level. The change of name cannot stop that descent; or make it any better.
What we need to do to change the image of the police force and the attitude of its personnel, officers and other ranks, is beyond the administrative competence of the Inspector-General of Police. Image matters. The first step is to devise ways and means of cleaning or refurbishing the image of the force and its personnel. There must be an overhaul of our policing system in a manner that makes the public trust and respect our law-enforcement personnel. We need to re-orientate our police men and women to make the police force a public-friendly civil force able and willing to respond to and serve the security and other needs of the society. We need to make our police personnel take pride in their job as men and women with the constitutional duty of making the society safe. Their current attitude of seeing their job as punishment is inimical to what the constitution and the public expect of them.
It is important to underline this: there is no police force anywhere in the world that has proved itself so efficient it could do without the assistance and the co-operation of civilians. It is unlikely that the Nigeria police can prove to be an exception. The police force needs the people as much as the people need them.
Join Daily Trust WhatsApp Community For Quick Access To News and Happenings Around You.
