Buhari Backs Away From State Police

Agency ReporterMay 30, 2018

0 4 minutes read

After many years of pussyfooting on the question of state police, the All Progressives Congress (APC) appears finally to have made up its mind. There will be no state police, says President Muhammadu Buhari in an interview with the Voice of America (VOA) during his trip to the United States. The president was never enamoured of state police, it must be admitted. As a matter of fact, he had always been generally and generously opposed to any constitutional amendment of such weight and substance as to qualify for the progressive label of rapid, if not radical, transformation.

Remarkably, for the significant issue of state police, the president anchored his conviction on the single but simple element of states’ financial solvency. Asked by his interviewer, Aliyu Mustapha, what his position on state police was, the president responded: “I want the Nigerian Constitution to be consulted first and see what it says. If it says they should be allowed, then they should be allowed. But don’t forget, how many times did we have to release money to states in the name of bailouts to enable them to pay salaries? How many states are able to pay their workers in time? And you add the police to them? People should look at this matter very well.”

Apparently not satisfied with the president’s rhetorical statement and how he seemed so sparse in his answer, the interviewer pressed him further to know why he seemed unconvinced about state police. The president responded: “No, I am not convinced. We should have solved the current insecurity in the North-east and South-South by now. Can the states be able to shoulder the burden of the police? You cannot just give someone guns and ammunition, train him and refuse to pay him, you know what will eventually happen.”

It is not only the interviewer who was mystified by the president’s response. Everyone would be surprised that for a question that demanded his best philosophical response, complete with a discourse on federalism and examples from other policies, and a reasoned argument from him about why Nigeria should toe the line of the majority or be different, the president simply dismissed the grave constitutional conundrum with a terse and uninspiring reply. Worse, he seemed even unsure what the constitution says on the matter. No, he didn’t seem unsure; he actually did not know what the constitution says.

More and more, it is evident that there will be no serious effort to rework Nigeria. If the president cannot appreciate the significance of the insecurity problem overwhelming Nigeria, where soldiers are deployed in about 32 states to carry out police duties; if he cannot understand the tragic implications of deploying more and more soldiers around the country with all the support infrastructure, including brigades and operational bases, then clearly Nigeria will keep on mindlessly adopting the same jaded measures and expecting different outcomes. It is clear that, as his position on many grave national issues indicates, the president has made up his mind on state police without giving the matter any serious thought whatsoever.

With the president making up his mind so facilely, supported largely by confused commentators averse to fundamental structural and constitutional changes, the idea of state police may be dead for now. But it cannot be avoided in the long run, of course, and things are going to get far worse before Nigerian leaders recognise that they had been tilting at windmills. The president’s response also shows the hypocrisy of the APC and the disconnection between him and his party. In January, the APC ad hoc committee on true federalism indicated that a majority of respondents agreed with the quest for state police. It is not clear whether the president consulted with the recommendations made by the committee set up by the party he leads.

Importantly too, in February, perhaps flowing from the work of the party’s ad hoc committee, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo cautiously threw his weight behind state police. That same February, the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF), pursuant to a national security summit they held in Abuja, all but accepted the inevitability of state police, but hedged it with the caveat that only states able to fund it should go for it. The governors did not make the argument about the possible misuse of the police, even though it is a genuine reason to dilly-dally.

Overall, the president is wrong to hinge his distaste for state police on the issue of funding. Not only is the federal government grossly underfunding the police, it is not also able to innovative in structuring and running it. If the states had not weighed in to provide financial succour for the police, the law enforcement agency would have since collapsed.

It is also frustrating that the president simply cannot make a connection between the increasing deployment of soldiers in states for police duties and the fact that the present structure, control, funding and operations of the police indicate both gross inadequacy in federal management of the organisation and the need to develop a new police and law enforcement paradigm in its entirety. But perhaps the president and his aides are still capable of presenting far more plausible and coherent arguments to sustain their needless and counterproductive opposition to state police. The public would like to hear those arguments.