State Police: Amaechi, Beware!
The demand by the Nigerian Governors' Forum, NGF, for state police, which Governor Chibuike Amaechi is the Chairman, was supposed to be a good thing if accepted. But the avoidable controversy it is now eliciting is rather dangerous for Nigerians coupled with the open anarchical approach the Governors of the Northern region has betrayed the forum's unanimous agreement for such a measure. Hence, Amaechi should beware!
For those who are not in the-know of what state police means; it is in other term regarded as community policing. But for us in Nigeria with states, the governors deemed it fit to use the word state police. Its scope does not vary from the police in our hand, so also is the implementation. It is a very important drift in police work.
In Community Policing, (1990:5), it is regarded as: … a new philosophy of policing, based on the concept that police officers and private citizens working together in creative ways can help solve contemporary community problems related to crime, fear of crime, social and physical disorder, and neighborhood decay. The philosophy . . . requires that police departments develop a new relationship with the law-abiding people in the community, allowing them a greater voice in setting local priorities, and involving them in efforts to improve the overall quality of life in their neighborhoods. It shifts the focus of police work from handling random calls to solving problems.
The above could be what the NGF meant when it said that it was about to find a lasting solution to the country's security challenges. But this “country's security challenges can be seen is gradually widening and extended to such a reputable organization as the NGF as the Northern governors are opposed to the decentralisation of the Nigerian Police Force.
In a communiqué said was signed by the Northern governors on this issue, without mincing words, is in its entirety a betrayal of the position of the Amaechi-led NGF. And one wonders what will be the outcome of the proposed amendment to the 1999 Constitution, if the NGF is singing with discordant voices at this stage.
With the authentic refusal of the Northern Governors for the creation of state police, it means that someone is happy with the insecurity challenges in some states, therefore the special intervention which the state police could have rendered, will expose a lot of things. The change would have been a good thing for police responsibilities, goals, operations, and management. The fear is whether most police will change their fundamental thoughtful approach overnight in the supposed new scheme.
However, since Amaechi can now read the handwriting on the wall in the NGF's house. He should know that it will be very hard to reduce the pains and inflammation the state “Nigeria is causing us; Nigeria is one, but different Nigerians. That he is the chair of the NGF might not mean that he is loved by all in the NGF. How else would we not agree on this if the Northern governors had the effrontery to thwart a decision the NGF agreed upon and perhaps was nailed by the NGF's chair, which is always the norm in every meeting? Would they be expunged from the meeting? This is typical as we have seen the renegades among the governors, who do not want the collective objectivity of the house, but their bias agenda.
I have always posited that I wonder why Nigerians flair up on hearing of any project the government is initiating, through tribal voices, when such project is not initiated by them; especially those from the North are good at this. Amaechi could see that Nigerians are just happy with their ethnicities than they are with the Federal Republic of Nigeria or any official group representing a collective sense of a group. Nigerians are just comfortable being addressed as Hausa, Yoruba or Igbo or something else than they are addressed as Nigerians, as we have seen in the NGF.
Many projects in Nigeria are jamboree, and people from the North don't tend to believe in any project in Nigeria any longer because a Southerner is the president of the country and the chairman of the NGF. Dichotomy is a dangerous virus eating the fabrics of Nigerians. Competence does not mean anything to Nigerian politicians, but zoning. And this concept is causing the Nigerian state a great deal of damage. People are killed when it's not their zone's time to contest and win an election. Amaechi should beware!
Sometimes I weep, if not always. Many people still see “Nigeria” as titular. They are not happy when they are addressed as Nigerians. They either preferred being addressed as Biafrans, Oduduwans, Arewans, name them. And this could be what the Northern governors are insinuating: They want Northern Police! Amaechi should know that it's this virus called dichotomy that has eaten deeply the Nigerians mentality that I think is responsible for the official thievery among the many politicians in Nigeria. Many of them don't think and assume that Nigeria is real. So, they thieve owing to their mentality that Nigeria would one day break into pieces.
Amaechi should beware as he goes about the business of the Nigerian Governors' Forum, because President Aguiyi-Ironsi (a Southerner) was killed in the North, and later Yakubu Gowon-led government massacred the people of the old South-east with dangerous munitions, yet the North is not happy in Nigeria.
Odimegwu Onwumere, Coordinator, Concerned Non-Indigenes In Rivers State (CONIRIV).