Aliyu Attah is a former Inspector-General of Police. In this interview with SHUAIB SHUAIB, he speaks on: the desirability of state police, the reform the police, the rotation of political offices, his tenure as police boss, and other issues of national importance.
There have been calls for the creation of state police. Do you think Nigeria is ready for this?
Of course, Nigeria is quite ready for state police. I see no reason why we cannot have state police. The earlier reason why we stopped local government police is very well known – because they were misused. But if we are going to create state police in this regard, we will give a lineup of what they are to do and when responsibility should be taken over by Nigerian police. We had before at Alagbon Close where you have the highest Criminal Investigation Department. It is still there; only its activities have gone down now. Otherwise, if they create state police and then we table all the things they are to be doing, and it is tabulated, I think it is the greatest idea. It will definitely help us in solving all these cases like the Boko Haram case. State police would have helped us to know who and who are involved in this. They cannot be faceless people. Like what was happening in the riverine area, state police would have been able to identify everybody involved in that type of organisation.
There are people that have fears that it will give each governor his own little army which could be used to terrorise political opponents. How can these fears be assuaged?
Our problem is that when there is something being proposed, we think of so many reasons why it should not be done. If we are going to create state police, it is not just going to come like a shrub coming out from the ground. They will create laws that they will follow. If they are to be responsible to little things like that, their powers to arrest will be just on minor offenses. Somebody stealing a fowl and a man beating his wife – these are some of the things they can do. You tabulate what they can do. It will be minor offenses and they cannot cross over. When the offenses cross a certain point, the Nigerian Police will take over. In those days when Alagbon was operating very well, when you have certain offenses – robbery of a certain magnitude – they take over. The police in the state will only assist them, to show them ways on what to do. So, there was something like that happening, but it was just on one line within the Nigerian Police. What about these people, the
Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), they arrest but they do not exceed their powers. You have told them what they can do. When pipelines are vandalised, they just go there and take care of the pipeline. Are they not policing the country? They are policing the country in a different form. They are in uniform, too, and soon they will be carrying arms as I have learnt. So, they know the job they are to do; they do not cross over and if they are to assist the police, they do. Nigerians are intelligent: once you tell them this is your part and if anybody goes beyond his power, there is a law to deal with him. In England, you have Metropolitan Police and then you have county police in other areas. I went to West Riding School; they have West Riding Police, that is Leeds and others areas around there. So, they have their own various police units in England.
A lot of you have been campaigning for the creation of state police. No one has yet sponsored a bill for it. Why is that?
Well, yours truly, I did not think about that. When I meet my colleagues of retired IGs, I will put it to them – ‘can we not hold a meeting and think about organizing something towards the constitutional amendment bill so that we can defend it and let the country know that if we create state police, it will be very good’. I never thought of it but now that you have mentioned it, I will bring it to my colleagues, the retired IGs, and talk about it. When we are going to do it, we will invite the present IG to come. If there is anything he can put in, he will put it.
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You have all been talking about police reforms for so many years now and it appears nothing is really changing. If anything at all, the efficiency of the police force seems to be depreciating. What can be done about it?
You have a lot to do to change the police force. You start from the recruitment, training. The quality of training is going down and when the training is going down, then it is going to be so. If you do the recruitment properly, the way I think is best, you start will early recruitment. You have a unit that will recruit people. They will check and make sure that the potential recruit has the physique that is required, the height, the chest and everything. There is no deformity and he is mentally balanced because he will have to go to a hospital. All these things must be done, and I do not think we do that now. You take the fingerprint to know that he is not a criminal or whether he has done something bad before. You go to the schools he has attended to know whether he was a good student, not somebody in a cult or so.
All these things must be done and then you bring him in, let him be trained as a policeman. During the training, you will have methods of training with exams and everything. When somebody is trained and he comes out, you send them out in groups and you send them out to go and work. What I learnt when I went to Australia is that when they go out, after about two years or so, they come back. The group will come back and maybe, by then, one or two of them must have been dismissed for some reason. When they come again, they further train them for higher assignments. That is how they will come in and go for a few years.
They are coming back for training, going to work again and by the time they finish their six years of training, you will see a perfect policeman being turned out. When you turn them out as policemen and they continue to work as policemen, they earn their promotion after every course. Then you will of think of changing them from constable, corporal, sergeant to become inspectors. But there must be exams they will take. If you measure that with exams and the interviews, you will see that the interview is sophisticated so that when somebody passes from here to there, it is a diploma or o’level. Maybe by the time he becomes a superintendant of police, he will have a master degree. By the time he is going on various courses to become a commissioner of police, he will then have a doctorate degree. So, most of the commissioners when they are promoted and you go to any state, you see that commissioner of this has a doctorate in police work or philosophy, something related to policing a nation. By the time he gets to a high rank, he is already a doctor in his own form of work. And, you get people to train them, well trained people. If you want, bring people from outside the country to train the trainers. Just like our universities, they will continue with the training. So, that is what it is and once you get it, good uniforms, well turned out, you have a perfect police force. But if you just talk and do nothing, they will continue be what they are now.
The insecurity in the country, specifically the Boko Haram threat, has been attributed to the extrajudicial killing of its leader, Mohammed Yusuf, by the police. A number of low-level officers are on trial because of this. There people that see them as scape goats when the high ranking officers that gave them the orders are left alone. What do you think is happening there?
I do not think that the high level people are left alone. I could see that assistant commissioners of police – two of them – were charged along with the others. They were only given bail and if they can defend themselves, it is all right. But from what I have heard before, even the assistant commissioners of police – their orders ( to kill Boko Haram leader Mohammed Yusuf) came from somewhere. So, you should go and find out because I cannot say until it has been proved to me. But I heard it, so it can be investigated. Find out, the order was not from the police.
Some people believe that the then governor of Borno State, Ali Modu Sheriff, had a hand in the creation of Boko Haram and there are those that wonder why he is not being interrogated. Is he above the law?
He has defended himself. He said he knows nothing about it. I think I listened to him talking on television. He has defended himself. If you want, create a body, either the State Security Service (SSS) or another to investigate this aspect and find out whether it is true or not. This Boko Haram, nobody can tell exactly what it is all about. The literal translation is that education is bad or so. But when you go into it, maybe it is not exactly what it seems. If it is so, have they attacked any university in Maiduguri? Have they attacked a secondary school? If they say knowledge is bad, why do they not target schools so that nobody goes to school. They are not doing that one. There must be something and we have to know exactly what that meaning is.
Why are their attacks mostly targeted at the Nigerian Police?
It is because they see the police as the enemy.Somebody who killed your leader. We saw the video on Aljazeera or somewhere. It was the police that fired and killed. To them, the police is the number one enemy. Then maybe other people. But if Boko is really Haram, then they should have been going to schools but they are not. They are not targeting that one.
The federal government has actually set up a seven-man committee to negotiate with Boko Haram. Do you think that is the right way forward?
I think they are to investigate; not to negotiate. As I understand it, they are to investigate and find out what it is all about and then the government can come out with a White Paper on that. I think it is good to know them, to know what they want and then you can form a body to find out how we can end it. It has happened before, like in the riverine area. Before, people thought it was a no-go area. But the wisdom of late Umaru Yar’Adua was used. He said, ‘come please, we are the same; let us see what we can do’ and it has done the magic. Nothing has happened again around that area. When I was commissioner of police in that area, I saw it coming and I put it in my report that something must be done because that area needs development. I have gone to almost all the areas there. I saw it. As a region, that is old Rivers State, now Bayelsa and two others. They are left behind in development and I think government is doing very well to develop the area.
Who did you pass your report to?
I was a commissioner of police. We write weekly reports to headquarters.
And nothing was done about it?
I do not know. I cannot say nothing was done about it because we have a unit that analyses all these things. I had a very good rapport with the governor then. When he gets the report from the riverine areas, he will give me and I will send it to the right place. Do not forget that then we use to have E Department in the police but, later on, it was cancelled. Nothing like that again. The E Departments, special branch they called it, investigated these types of things. Like a type of special branch, the IG would have said: ‘You what is happening in Maiduguri? They do not wear uniforms. They are there maybe as a taxi driver or he is selling ogogoro and so on. He gets to know and writes his report and then sends it. That special branch is no more.
Why was it abolished?
I do not know. It was the government then that abolished it and not me. It is either you bring it back or something, because in the northern region, let us say a province is divided, you have districts, you have village heads and so on. And then the village heads have ward heads. Several village heads in one district and districts in one province. So, these people, they live among the people and if there is any new fellow among them, they know. They know what everybody does. So, he will go and tell his village head. The village head will carry the news to the district head and the district head will carry the news to the emir. The emir will then bring it to the government, either to the police, maybe the Division Police Office (DPO) or whatever then. That is how it goes. So, if you want to create a police duty in that line, that is okay. Call it whatever department you want. You will send that department to all these areas. Maybe in a village, you have about two or three police of this creation there. They move about and listen. One is a taxi driver, one is selling something and he has a shop and maybe the other one is a hair dresser for women. You know women, they gossip a lot when they go to the hair dresser. So, they get information and write it down and pass it over. That is the best way of doing it. If you create it and the thing can spread, maybe it can be the beginning of the state police that we are talking about. If you think state police is going to be something else, no, this is the type of thing I am thinking of. They work in the states and gather all these things and send it.
Elders in Maiduguri have asked that the Joint Task Force be withdrawn. Do you think this is ideal?
They should work in conjunction with the Shehu of Borno, the emirs and so on. There should be a meeting point for them so that they will know what to do. I cannot comment correctly on that because I do not know much about it.
President Goodluck Jonathan is proposing a bill to restrict the tenure of presidents and governors to one term of six years. Political leaders have said Jonathan needs to consult more on this. Do you think so?
At the time something like this was being done by Gen. Sani Abacha, he formed groups of people, almost like a National Assembly, but not quite so they would all go back to their places and contact their people and come back. So for this type of thing, there should be contact. But I’ m person. I have been talking about it for a long time, not from today. I did not say six years but if there is something like that, it will be so good. If it was a military man trying to create a constitution, everyone would say it was a good thing. But now that it is a politician, everyone will see things differently. Somebody will say it is this or it is that, like Islamic banking. As soon as it is mentioned, everyone will begin to see it in a different light. So on this one, as far as I am concerned, if it can be done cleanly, it is the best thing for the country because it will stop all this money being spent during election and this buying of positions. It will stop it. That is one. Number two, you put a clause there that says, in each region with three senatorial districts, if Zone A produces the governor of the state, the next time, it will be B and the next will be C – it will be going round like that. In some areas, you will see that only one area will be producing the governor. That is why you see people demanding their own states. If you do that, you will see that the creation of states will stop. Nobody will be asking for states because they know their own governor will come from that area. There should be rotation and it will be very good. That is, if it is done perfectly, in a good way.
If that is achieved, do you think President Goodluck Jonathan should be a beneficiary of it?
I do not know. I am not a politician and I do not play politics. The politicians will sit down and decide it. If he says he is not going to stay, are you going to force him to stay? You cannot force him to stay. After all, if that is all he does for the country, and probably improve on power supply and they say, in two years, certain roads will be all right, if you are scoring him in percentage, you will give him 75 to 80. But if he cannot perform, it will not go well. But if he passes this law and make these corrections I have mentioned, like the rotation of governors and rotation of presidency between the six regions, you will see that it will be a good thing. They should also pick some ideas from Abacha that says we should have two vice presidents, one from a particular geographical area and any other one, so that if what happened to Yar’Adua happens again, then the one from his area can step in immediately. That way the zone is not cheated. But his (single term) proposal is very good if it is very well done.
With his election as president, do you think the rotation of the presidency is still a possibility in Nigeria?
I think it is possible because we, in this country, are people that can easily amend things. Nigeria has come to stay. We gain more being together than being apart, for many years to come, maybe when we are no longer in this world. Those great great-grand children will say we were once together before. It is better to be together, we are stronger. It is a great country, I pray that we stay together.
What would you say was your greatest achievement as Inspector General of Police?
I cannot point to anything specific but in terms of welfare, I did my best. The bank I established is doing very well now, very great. That is the Police Community Bank which is now Police Micro Finance Bank. We are expanding and we want it to reach all the zones. Welfare was my greatest achievement and you remember when I took over, I stopped road blocks and it was going on fine. Sometimes, we had interference with a governor saying, ‘IG, I need a road block in a certain place.’ I told them, ‘if you want a road block, you will have to do A,B,C,D.’ I have done my best but I will say welfare of my men was number one. I was able to move police from the civil service and we now have our own unit of financing. I created this insurance because police were dying and the highest you were given then was N3,000 or so, for the burial of these people. But now you see families of the policemen getting millions when they die. Many policemen die every month in this country, till today. Without the insurance, they could not have been able to take care of policemen. So, I brought that on. That’s part of taking care of my people.
Are there things you wish you had done while you were IG?
I created the IGP Forum so that they can use that to help both the government and the police. But there were quite a number of things I had wanted because this thing started coming in at the time Gambo Jimeta was handing over to me, that is, the training of trainers. So, people were brought in from Britain, They came during my time from Britain. We put them up in the Police Staff College in Jos. Then people were invited from various states to go up there and train. We were training the trainers and they would go back to various police colleges and start to train others. After few years when I left, I learnt they had all gone back, that that thing perished and up until now, nothing like that is happening. It is very important to train the trainers because they come and train people in the right form. After all, we have sent people to Granada to retrain the policemen there. Now they have good police force there. So, why can’t we get people to retrain our own people? If it had continued, I would have been very happy.
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