Shortening police working hours

P ROFFERING solutions to a seemingly intractable problem can be quite challenging to any leader, especially where any error associated with it is usually of the fatal and irreversible hue.  In that circumstance, the decision maker tends to be desperate and inclined to try policy options ranging from the clearly ineffective to the patently ludicrous in a manner reminiscent of the proverbial drowning man that holds on to anything , including  the head of a snake, in order to stay afloat.  The Inspector General of Police (IGP),  Mohammed Adamu’s  recent announcement that police working hours will be reduced in order to rein in extrajudicial killings by the rank and file can be aptly situated within the foregoing context.  Under the new arrangement, policemen across board will operate three shifts instead of the current two shifts. The questionable thesis is that if policemen work for fewer hours, they would be less likely to engage in extrajudicial killings. Going by the IGP’s logic, unauthorised killings and brutality of innocent citizens for which the police are painfully reputed result from overwork and stress.

Pray, what kind of thinking is this that trivialises a grave issue?  The logic is fundamentally flawed.  There is no empirical evidence to support the IGP’s claim. Admittedly, though, he did not indicate that his choice of policy option resulted from the outcome of a specific scientific research on the subject matter. Scientifically, stress has many causative factors, so how do you assume that only long hours of work cause stress in the police? If reduction in the working hours of policemen is the best solution he can proffer to the recurring issue of extrajudicial killings by aberrant and undisciplined police personnel, then the IGP is clearly still in the woods. It does not bode well for good governance that public officers are often so overwhelmed by the seeming enormity of the challenges associated with their duties that they fail to carry out a thorough evaluation of the policy options that they intend to implement before making public pronouncements on them.  Clearly, running three shifts instead of two may not even scratch the surface of the problem underpinning extrajudicial killings by policemen, let alone impact it in a significant way.

• The police stripping incident in Ikorodu

If the police implement the IGP’s plan, only two-thirds of the required policing job within the system will be covered. A shortfall of a third of the total staff strength of the police is thus naturally created.  And the organisation will need to be adequately resourced in terms of recruitment of new personnel matched with requisite spending by way of extra wages, uniforms and so on, in order to close the gap. Who pays for that? And how will the police even pay for it when the current IGP was not part of the preparation of the 2019 police budget currently before the National Assembly? This implies that provisions may not have been made for the financial implications of the new plan.  We enjoin leaders at all levels, especially in the public service, to always advert their mind to the parlous state of the country’s economy while making critical decisions.  After all, leaders are usually required to make decisions subject to resource constraints.  The economy is tottering and this calls for prudent leaders and managers who can avoid all manners of needless expenditure that can worsen the already bad situation.

Assuming but not conceding that stress, as posited by the IGP, has contributed to the observed grave indiscretions by some policemen, such consideration pales into insignificance in the face of the role of indiscipline. The real bane of the police force is indiscipline among the rank and file. It is not very clear if this is essentially due to the quality of training that police personnel receive, but training and retraining promise to help a great deal. It is common knowledge that directives are issued from the high command of the police but what is being implemented down the line is the direct obverse. For instance, on virtually all the highways and even street roads in the country, policemen are ubiquitous, extorting money from motorists in defiance of the police leadership’s instructions on road blocks and checkpoints.  Meanwhile, the majority of the reported cases of extrajudicial killing reportedly happened usually when those being extorted attempted to assert their rights to the chagrin of the armed but undisciplined police operatives.

The effrontery with which members of the force carry on with this criminal and morally reprehensible act leaves no one in doubt that they enjoy the tacit support of their superiors who are most likely complicit in their crimes. The police high command should address indiscipline head-on among the rank and file and Nigerians will know when this has been done from the attitude of the policemen on the roads and at their stations.  Placing emphasis on stress rather than indiscipline among the officers and men of the police force as the cause of extrajudicial killings is analogous to treating ringworm while ignoring leprosy.