Persisting lopsidedness in Nigeria Police

LAST week, the Police Service Commission (PSC) wrote to the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Mr. Mohammed Adamu, accusing him of flouting a policy that requires each state of the federation to produce a police commissioner to head a state command. The PSC’s action came in the wake of the IGP’s blatantly lopsided recruitment of constables and posting of commissioners to command positions. Reports concerning the Nigeria Police recently indicated brazen disregard for the diversity of the country and constitutional order. The reports showed that the latest appointments of commissioners of police for the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) was skewed precariously against the grain of the constitution and imperilled the fragile string of national cohesion and stability.

Neither the police nor the Federal Government has denied the gross act of disdain and insensitivity to the psyche of stakeholders in the Nigerian federation. According to the report, the North-West alone got the lion’s share of the appointments, with 12 indigenes from the zone elevated as commissioners of police, whereas the entire South-East had just one, just as 14 other states in the federation did not make the list at all. A further analysis of the entire list indicated that Katsina had four slots, even when states like Abia, Anambra, Bayelsa, Benue, Delta, Ebonyi, Ekiti, Enugu, Jigawa, Kogi, Nasarawa, Ondo, Oyo and Rivers had none at all. Particularly curious is the fact that of the six geopolitical zones in the country, only the North-West was found worthy to produce 12 of the commissioners, with four of them being indigenes of Katsina, the home state of President Muhammadu Buhari.  Kebbi had three and Sokoto two, while Zamfara, Kano and Kaduna produced one apiece, with Jigawa, the seventh state in the zone, having none.

The other zone that is a major beneficiary of the exercise is the North-East with eight of its indigenes in command positions. Two each came from Adamawa and Taraba states, while Borno, Bauchi, Gombe and Yobe had one apiece. For the South-West, seven officers from the zone made the list, comprising Osun which has three, and Lagos and Ogun states with two each. Ekiti, Oyo and Ondo states had none. For the South-South, three of the five commissioners of police are from Cross River, one each from Akwa Ibom and Edo, while Rivers, Delta and Bayelsa have none. In the North-Central with four commissioners, states like Niger, Plateau, FCT and Kwara had one each, while Benue, Kogi, and Nasarawa produced none. The lopsided promotion/appointment raises fundamental questions about the integrity of the promotion, especially the non-conformity with the principle of Federal Character as enshrined in Section 14 (3) of 1999 Constitution (as amended). The provision states: “The composition of the Government of the Federation or any of its agencies and the conduct of its affairs shall be carried out in such a manner to reflect the federal character of Nigeria and the need to promote national unity, and also to command national loyalty, thereby ensuring that there shall be no predominance of persons from a few states or from a few ethnic of other sectional groups in that government or in any of its agencies.”

No doubt, the latest appointments in the police negate the spirit of the principles of federal character and federalism, as well as the law of social justice, equity and fairness. They have further exacerbated the imbalance and unfair representation in a strategic institution that ought to be the symbol of unity and cohesion. Could it be that Adamu has forgotten so soon, his promise when he assumed office as the 20th Inspector General of Police, that there is a new dawn in the police? It is invidious and disdainful that the police have failed to redress the problem of lopsidedness in the leadership of the force despite sustained public outcry, whereas the IGP exulted in the fact that “the force is blessed with some of the finest officers anywhere in the world that are not only intellectually gifted and exceptionally dedicated, but professionally sound enough to surmount these tasks if the right leadership is provided.”

The Nigeria Police cannot diligently fight crime with a house divided against itself. Deploying personnel with low morale to confront what the IGP described as the multi-faceted security challenges confronting the country is a risky exercise. The Nigerian society is seriously endangered when the leadership of the police force sees itself as being above the law. Equity demands immediate redress and an end to the government playing the ostrich in the face of travesty.