Does President Buhari Cares About Police Reforms?

Since May 29th 2015 that the current Federal administration came on board, I have endeavoured to read through the inaugural address of President Muhammadu Buhari over and over again. On the last count I discovered I have digested it a dozen times particularly because of the debate over the originality or otherwise of the phrase he used that 'he belongs to everyone but belongs to no one'.

Besides, I have also researched the President's inauguration speech (1,954 words) to weigh his consideration of Police Reforms in his overall scale of preference in terms of his strategic agenda in office for four years but to my shock the only mention of the Nigeria Police was in the negative.

This veiled skepticism is not altogether false factually since the President's allusion to police extra legal execution of suspects in police detention facilities is a notorious fact that has even attracted the attention of the United Nations' Human Rights Council which sent a delegation not too long ago that visited Nigeria and made shocking discovery of the extent of uninvestigated mass murders of suspected detainees by police operatives even as these rogue cops are walking the streets free and even still drawing salaries from the Nigerian people.

Those police officers who killed six Apo Abuja based traders including a pregnant Edo State born undergraduate in the street of Area eleven Garai few years are still free men even as the matter has dragged on at the High Court if (in) justice Abuja. The police operatives who murdered 49 youth in Anambra and dumped their fresh remains in the River in Awka are still not prosecuted and some of them have just recently been elevated by the Nigeria Police service Commission. Such is the extent of rot in the Nigeria Police Force. But why couldn't Mr President cease the momentous opportunity of his most important speech till date to highlight his comprehensive reform minded agenda for this decayed policing institution?

President Buhari’s mention of the word Police was when he talked about how Boko Haram became a global terrorist platform with the alleged gruesome killing by police of the founder of this armed Islamic terrorists- Mr Mohammed Yusuf in Maiduguri Borno State.

But just before he mentioned the word Police in his inaugural address he equally stated his determination to reform PUBLIC SERVICE but the word police reform was an anathema in that lengthy speech. Mind you the police in Nigeria is constructed as an executive and not an independent body.

Here are a few excerpts from Mr. President's inaugural speech which related closely to reforms of the security sector although he rarely or never used those words.

President Buhari told his audience just few minutes after he took an oath of office at the magnificent Eagle Square at the Three Arms Zone of Abuja that at home we face enormous challenges.

He listed these man-made problems as Insecurity, pervasive corruption, the hitherto unending and seemingly impossible fuel and power shortages as the immediate concerns that his administration would tackle headlong .

In his own words President Buhari said "We are going to tackle them head on. Nigerians will not regret that they have entrusted national responsibility to us. We must not succumb to hopelessness and defeatism."

Then almost at the tail end of the speech here are what he said that touches on the police just in passing; "... Boko Haram is a typical example of small fires causing large fires. An eccentric and unorthodox preacher with a tiny following was given posthumous fame and following by his extra judicial murder at the hands of the POLICE (emphasis is mine). Since then through official bungling, negligence, complacency or collusion Boko Haram became a terrifying force taking tens of thousands of lives and capturing several towns and villages covering swathes of Nigerian sovereign territory."

And then he made a down-to-Earth revelation of his disgust with inefficient law enforcement when he emphatically stated that: "Boko Haram is not only the security issue bedeviling our country. The spate of kidnappings, armed robberies, herdsmen/farmers clashes, cattle rustlings all help to add to the general air of insecurity in our land. We are going to erect and maintain an efficient, disciplined people – friendly and well – compensated security forces ...."

But why he never mentioned police reforms throughout his most important speech is anyone's guess but if we go by the wise saying of the great Greek Philosopher Mr. Socrates that "the first impression of anything matters so much" and then we add up what Socrates stated with our African adage that the "Morning says exactly how the rest of the day would be" then what we get is nothing but to live with the hope and prayer that Mr. President will realise that any nation without a functional, disciplined, proactive, intelligence-led and well educated and well renumerated policing institution is as good as a BANANA REPUBLIC. Most Discerning Nigerians are aware that many rogue elements within the police collude with kidnappers and armed robbers to unleash their bloody violence on unsuspecting members of the public and are constantly harassing and extorting money from innocent Nigerians on framed up charges. Police officers are known to have changed criminal charges they slammed on suspects depending in the weight and extent of the bribes on offer. Most times innocent pick pocket with no big payouts for the arresting police operatives are roped into some bogus armed robbery operations and it doesn't take these rogue police officers any time to manufacture some weapons they display as exhibits before the gullible press whenever they are parading their over tortured suspects in their custody. But the police is the life wire of most functional democracies.

For instance as I punch through my android phone to put up this piece this early morning from my rural hotel room in South Woodham Ferrers in Chelmsford United Kingdom, I have with me a copy of the METRO Newspaper of Monday July 20th 2015 which ran an advert of an ongoing recruitment exercise into the Metropolitan Police of London and going through it I couldn't see where prospective applicants were asked to purchase a scratch card before applying but they were asked to simply apply online and when I browse through the website www.metropolivecareers.co.uk , there was indeed no mention of selling of recruitment forms unlike what obtains in Nigeria whereby even recruitment into the military is on cash and carry basis.

Any wonder that Boko Haram successfully sacked the so called 'fearsome' Mobile Police Training College in Gwosa Borno State and made away with all their weapons and sadly too killed scores of police trainees with over 30 of these Nigerians unaccounted for but yet we have police hierarchy that is more interested in propaganda than in creating enabling environment for reforms of the rotten policing institution.

An average constable in the London Metropolitan Police earns in Pounds Sterling the following figures-£22,443; £37,254 plus £6,663 London weighting and allowances in only one year.

These are mouth-watering wage bills by all accounts but gong by their qualifications and rare skills I'm convinced that they more than deserves these wage bills . Again all those to be recruited are captured biometrically in such a way that crooks are sift out from the genuinely crime free prospective recruitees/applicants.

In Nigeria at least under then President Olusegun Obasanjo's watch even by his open confessional statement prostitutes and thieves were recruited into Nigeria police force. You can be sure that some of these rogue elements are today holding Commanding positions which is why some police commissioners are as rich as Aliko DANGOTE if not richer because some owned housing assets I'm told in the choice areas of London but Aliko DANGOTE said he has no single property outside of Nigeria.

Let President Buhari deliver a sound, qualitative and intelligence-led-led Nigeria police made up of State, Local and National police Force. This can only be achieved if forensic overhaul is conducted to remove the many bad eggs from the police, make national legislation for state police in our Constitution and to build functional data bank of all prospective police intakes at all levels. The current 'patch patch' and fire brigade approach to maintaining and running this collapsing Nigeria Police Force will not stand the test of time. Let's tell ourselves the truth. Same applies to Nigeria Customs and Immigration both of which are cesspools of corruption and stench of roguery. Do you now see why Boko Haram flows in and out of Nigeria with choice weapons? They enjoy patronage from Customs and Immigration. Common! Let's organize our internal security architecture.

*Emmanuel Onwubiko is Head of Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria and blogs @ www.huriwa.blogspot.com , www.rightsassociationngr.com , www.huriwa.org .