The Nigerian police has come under attack in recent times not only by the dreaded Boko Haram sect, the new acting IG Mohammed Abubakar also tongued lashed the officers and men of the police force for allowing the standard of policing the country to fall to its nadir CHIKA OTUCHIKERE examines the issues.
The Nigeria Police Force has been the biggest causality of the Boko Haram invasion whose dastardly activities have negatively impacted on nearly every facet of the society and set everyone on edge.
This is not the first time the police are bearing the brunt of criminality. During the days of the infamous Lawrence Anini’s armed robbery saga, the police stations and members of the force were also the prime target of the killings.
Reports of investigations that came to light in both episodes gave indications that the police had turncoats who abetted the criminals and ensured that they succeeded while it lasted.
Top ranking officers were found culprits and accomplices to killers of their colleagues. In the Anini case, Deputy Superintendent of Police, DSP George Iyamu, was not only found guilty but executed alongside the robbers.
LEADERSHIP SUNDAY learnt that although Iyamu was recruited as a mechanic, he moved to become an officer and even head of an anti-robbery squad. The wolf in sheep’s apparel received several letters of commendation from his bosses as the head of an anti-robbery squad in the former Bendel State Police Command.
Those commendations did not stop him from being the robbers’ informant and supplier of the arms which Anini and his gang used to brutally murder his colleagues. The then Commissioner of Police in Benin, Mr. Casmir Akagbosu was not spared the robbers bullet as his car was blocked by the Anini gang and he was shot on the face.
Anini’s trial and subsequent execution brought an end to the reign of killings and lootings which the notorious gang unleashed on the then Nigerian society.
In the recent reign of the bomb throwing Boko Haram members, a senior police officer, Commissioner of Police, CP Zakari Biu was found implicated after he allowed a top Boko Haram suspect under his ‘watchful eyes’ to escape. The escapee who was later recaptured blew the whistle on the commissioner of police.
Unlike the Anini case whose reign of terror ended by his killing, the controversial killing of the acclaimed leader of the Boko Haram sect, Mohammed Yussuf, an act which rained condemnation on the police, signaled the beginning of the Boko Haram reign of terror. The removal of IG Hafiz Rimgim was not unconnected with his inability to make any headway in the fight against the Boko Haram members.
Just as it was the collusion of the police that gave the Anini gang the image of invincibility, many Nigerians are of the view that the invincibility of the Boko? Haram sect could be the outcome of the ‘help’ received from their accomplices in the police, armed forces and the political circles.
Former IG Hafiz Ringim, came into office spitting fire and telling the world that the days of the Boko Haram sect were over. Not long after, the sect in a unique way asked the IG to permanently shut up his mouth. The sect visited him right inside his office complex and carried out a bomb attack that not only shook the fabrics of the police force but the entire nation.
After then it was obvious that the police had lost grip on the fight. The SSS and the military were invited to give the terrorist gang a fight for their money. It did not take long before the IG was shown the exit out.
Acting IG Mohammed Abubakar was appointed to succeed Ringim. In one of his inaugural speeches, instead of making empty boasts against the Boko Haram, he took the battle to his officers and men, reading them a riot act.
The police boss, who read the riot act while addressing assistant commissioners of police (ACPs) whose commands are in charge of operations and Criminal Investigation Departments (CIDs), warned that he would hold Command Operation Officers and the ACP CIDs personally and directly responsible for operational and investigative misdemeanours occurring within their jurisdiction.
Lamenting that the Nigeria Police had fallen to its lowest ebb and had become the subject of ridicule within the law enforcement community and among the public, Abubakar noted that police had become commercialised and were provided at the whims and caprices of the highest bidder.
“Our men are deployed to rich individuals and corporate entities such that we lack manpower to provide security for the common man; our investigation departments cannot equitably handle matters unless those involved have money to part with it.
“Our police stations, state CIDs and operation offices have become business centres and collection points for rendering returns from all kinds of squads and teams set up for the benefit of superior officers.
“Our respect is gone and the Nigerian public has lost even the slightest confidence in the ability of police to do any good thing,” he lamented.
Abubakar insisted that the police must be purged of corruption which he said cripples and frustrates every honest effort at reforming the police as exemplified in the total failure of the multiple efforts of government at reforming the NPF.
“These attitudes must stop and we must collectively purge the police system of all undesirable elements and criminal tendencies,” he charged.
Some security analysts who reacted to the IG’s speech said the problem with the police was endemic and would not be resolved by mere words. According to them, the problems of the police have been identified by panels set up to look into the reform of the police but no political will to implement recommendations.
A member of one of the panels, Mr. Emeka Nwanevu, noted that the government must be willing to carry out a full-scale reform of the police if the society must be rid of criminalities.
“There is no need for a new panel to be set up. What the government needs to do is go back to the findings of all the other panels set up before this one and implement them.
The government will find out that their frame of reference is not different from the past ones and the they would find out nothing new”, he said.