The lack of trust between the citizens and members of the Nigeria
Police Force has compounded the security challenges in the country, as
the NPF is regarded as one of the most corrupt institutions in Nigeria.
Armed policemen fighting each other right in the middle of the road, while civilians watch helplessly.
Before
now, the Police Force was seen as a place for the not-too-good, and
even today some families would never willingly allow their children to
join the NPF, especially because of the reputation Nigerians have come
to know them for over the years.
While there are indeed
disciplined men and women in the Force, bad eggs have crept in and
sullied the image of the police, many of whom are still destroying that
already mangled reputation.
The lack of professionalism has
engulfed the police so much so that hardly a day passes without one
hearing of the involvement of a member of the police force in one form
of crime or the other.
If they are not accused of extra-judicial killing, it will be bribery or aiding and abetting crimes.
The
most recent is policemen’s involvement in armed robbery attacks. Though
this has been going on for several years, the number of armed robbery
attacks which involved policemen has reached an alarming level; and this
is all across the nation.
On 16 October this year a traditional
ruler alleged that a serving senior police officer was among the robbers
who went on a shooting spree during which 23 people were killed in
Dogon Dawa village, Kaduna State, north central Nigeria.
Emir of
Birnin Gwari, Alhaji Zubairu Jibril Mai Gwari, who made the allegation
said that the deadly robbers launched a pre-dawn attack on the village,
apparently to free four of their colleagues who were arrested and
detained by vigilantes a few days earlier. The armed robbers killed the
village head, one of his sons, some villagers as well as nine worshipers
coming out of a mosque.
Mai Gwari spoke when he received visiting
Kaduna State Governor, Patrick Yakowa, General Officer Commanding
(GOC), 1 Mechanised Division, the state Police Commissioner and the
Director of State Security Service (SSS).
He alleged that a police
officer his people knew very well led the team of armed robbers to
Dogon Dawa, and urged authorities to arrest and prosecute him.
He
was quoted to have said: “Since I made my statement in public and before
the governor and other security chiefs, I know what I am saying. The
police officer, who my people and the armed robbers call OC, led the
gang that massacred my people.”
The enraged ruler also alleged
that the said policeman attempted to stop the arrest of the four
suspected armed robbers when the Dogon Dawa vigilante team went to pick
them up.
It was not the first time that police officers would be
involved in robbery but this particular incident attracted international
attention because many lives were lost while the police, who were
supposed to protect lives and property, were said to be behind the
killings.
The traditional ruler also alleged that when the gang of
armed men invaded the community, it was the OC that led and showed the
robbers the places to attack.
“This is why I would personally ensure that the man is investigated,” the Emir fumed.
Following
the revelation, the Zaria Area Command of the Police Force ordered the
arrest and detention of the police officer in question.
However,
the Emir of Birnin Gwari said he was sure that the officer was not in
detention; he said he suspected that the erring officer may have been
transferred to another command.
But the Kaduna State Police
Commissioner Olufemi Adenaike or the Command’s spokesman DSP Aminu Lawal
are yet to respond to the Emir’s allegation.
Cases of police
involvement in robbery operations have been on the rise, which makes
people ask how these criminals find their way into the police force.
In
the last few years, recruitment into the Nigeria Police Force has
become a contentious issue as people say if one pays a certain amount of
money, he could be recruited. While the truth or otherwise of this has
not been ascertained, certain matters need to be looked into and
deductions made.
On 4 October, the Nigeria Police College, Kaduna
was reported to have told journalists that it had found a robbery
suspect among recruits undergoing training in the college.
The
Commandant of the college, Alhaji Sanusi Rufai, told newsmen in Kaduna
that the suspect was named by suspected members of his gang after they
were arrested by the police in Abuja.
The commandant said details
of the suspect’s identity were forwarded to the college, and he was
arrested and transferred to the appropriate police unit for
investigation.
Rufai said the suspect was among 25 recruits the college disqualified for various inadequacies identified during training.
The
commandant said some of the students were found to have presented
forged school results, others had criminal records, “while some were
withdrawn based on health grounds.”
He added: “Some of the
recruits have sight or hearing challenges, while a few others did not
attend the schools whose certificates they presented.”
Rufai said
the college would continue to screen unfit persons out to ensure that
only those with knowledge and good character were allowed to train as
policemen and women.
As at the time of the discovery, more than
4,000 recruit constables were currently undergoing a 15-month basic
training at the college. The discovery was just in Kaduna. Nigeria also
has Police colleges in Maiduguri, Borno State; Oji, Enugu State and
Ikeja, Lagos State.
One can imagine how many people of shady
character have found their way into the Police Force. Deductive
reasoning says up to five per cent of new recruits may be of dubious
character, which will eventually rub off on another 20 per cent when
they eventually get posted to cities, towns and villages.
This
raises the issue of what kind of people are being recruited into the
force, how the recruitment is carried out and the criteria for
recruiting policemen.
Though the Force Public Relations Officer,
CSP Frank Mba, affirmed in an interview recently that police officers
are not a collection of angels and that the force has continued to fish
out the bad ones and dismissed them. He noted that the force does not
have to do a DNA test for a new entrant, but when the force discovers
any deviant behaviour, neccessary steps are always taken.
Mba
added that in some cases it is usually too late to trace such deviant
behaviour because such a person would have grown in the service and
become a senior officer. By then, the damage has been done.
It is
obvious that there are no mechanisms in place to weed out criminals who
join the force, hence they have continued to commit crimes even while in
uniform. The only available means is the screening which is mainly
guess work; even then a very high number of people of questionable
character find their way into the force.
Our checks traced this
problem to the fact that the police have not imbibed a tradition of
discipline in the way of recruiting people into the force. Some of the
problems include nepotism and bribery. Prospective recruits have been
known to bribe their way into the police force, and officers at the
recruitment centres cannot swear they don’t know this.
These
crooked men eventually get into police uniform, they engage in all forms
of criminality— renting out their guns to armed robbers, providing
information to robbers, intimidating people, helping land speculators
grab other people’s land, mounting illegal road blocks, helping
smugglers by escorting their goods and actually robbing people at gun
point, among many others. It is therefore not surprising that some
policemen and even officers have been caught or linked to many crimes.
It
was widely suspected that policemen were involved in the recent
robbery incident in Lagos, during which some police officers and
civilians lost their lives.
Further checks revealed that
recruitment is no longer based on merit, if it had ever been. It is whom
you know and how much you can afford. By implication, all manner of
unqualified people are enrolled while credible people do not get
recruited.
According to police sources who did not want their
names in print for obvious reasons, “the rot in recruitment exercise
begins when the forms are made available to candidates.
“Those who
are qualified are disqualified during the screening exercise and all
kinds of people are brought in through the quota system, after a
specific amount has been paid through an agent.
“Again, top officers in the force and influential people in the society send the names of their candidates.”
“Most
people that come through these ways are usually deviants and
criminal-minded young men and women whose relations consider them a
thorn in their fresh and push them out to the police to enable them have
peace in their homes, families and communities,” the police source
added.
But Mba denied the claim that police is a dumping ground
for deviants. He said majority of officers have reputation, integrity
and are well educated to help imbibe professionalism into the force. He
noted that the few bad ones are gradually being shown the way out.
Stars
