NIGERIA POLICE AND THE CHALLENGES OF SECURITY IN NIGERIA

NIGERIA POLICE AND THE CHALLENGES OF SECURITY IN NIGERIA

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the Nigeria police and the challenges of security in Nigeria.Security of life and property are of the primary purpose of government. 1999 Constitution emphasize that the security and welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of the government”. The government through the Nigeria police fulfills its obligation of security the nation. The following objectives were implemented; to find out whether corruption a challenge to police in curbing crimes in the society, to examine the cause of police corruption in Nigeria, to examine various facts of police corruption. The paper adopted survey method. 80 respondents were randomly selected from River state police command, Frequency and simple percentage were used to analyze the data. The findings reveal that poverty, unemployment, leadership and religion are the root causes of insecurity in Nigeria. The paper recommends that the effort of the Nigeria police alone cannot curb the rate of insecurity in the nation, meanwhile, police should be funded adequately and remunerated well as this will encourage their performance on the job.

  CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

Such as the policing of drugs and other illicit markets, that have the strongest link with or are closest to the invitational edge of corruption are also those which are generally subject to the least managerial scrutiny. Increasingly these areas are also associated with extraordinary large sums of money and therefore very high levels of (financial) temperature. Corruption control and prevention strategies enforces where corrupt practices have been rife a range of strategies have been implemented with the aim of reducing if not eliminating corruption. However, in many cases those forces have since again been thrown into crisis as corruption has re-emerged some period after the origin reforms. The central conclusion is that although it is unrealistic to think that corruption can be eliminated and that full-scale or organizational corruption can be prevented.

Interestingly, some key findings have emerged with regards to the nature and dynamics of police corruption showed an organized pattern of police corruption across societies. The review concludes with eleven keys messeges central to any understanding of corruption and which should underpin reforms introduced for its prevention:

• Police corruption is pervasive, continuing and not bounded by rank.
• Any definition of corruption should cover both financial and process corruption and should acknowledge the varying means, ends and motives of corrupt activities.
• The boundary between corrupt and non corrupt activities is difficult of define primarily because this is at heart an ethical problem.
• Police corruption cannot simply be explained as the product of a few bad apples.
• The causes of corruption include: factors that are intrinsic to policing as a job, the nature of police organizations, the nature of police culture; the opportunities for corruption presented by the political and task environment and the nature and extend of the effort put into controlling corruption.
• Same areas of policing are more prone to corruption than others.
• Although there are many barriers to successful, corruption control, there is evidence that police agencies can be reformed.
• Reform needs to go beyond the immediately indentified
• Reform must look at the political and task environments as well as the organization itself.
• Reform tends not to be durable and
• Continued vigilance and skepticism is vital (the Knapp Report, 1972).

While the summary of the knapp report of 1972 focused on western societies and the United Kingdom in  particular. It is needful to know that peripheral country of the third world inherited this social malaise via. Colonialism and sustained by post- colonial ties syndrome. In Nigeria, such can be found in other developing societies, the police are generally believed to be corrupt, the factor that the Nigeria puplic attributed to the problem of inefficiency in the organization. Police corrupyion impacts directly on the ability of the police to prevent and control crime, including criminal investigation (Danbazua, 2007).

Many observers attest to the fact that there is widespread corruption in the Nigeria police, and that this is the image the public has of the average policeman. This according to formal president Obasajo (2004) is so bad that there is no difference between some police officers and armed robbers as the formal hire guns to armed robbers for operations. In the same vein, the road block syndrome by the police is used to extort money from run users in ways that defies all sense of decency (the punch 20grounds they he former undermines the 04). While the catalogue of police corruption seems endless, there is a great dent on the capacity of the police to protect national security against internal malevolent element.

Kleinig (in Newborn 1999:12) provides two versions to explain that the descent into crime is gradual, starting off small and becoming increasing addictive. The “logical” version suggests “that because even the acceptance of a minor gratuity involves the same implicit radionale as say the acceptance of cash-compromising professional impartiality for personal gain the person who does the former undermines the ground they may have had for refusing letter. The logic behind this is that because both the acceptance of a small gratuity and the acceptance of cash are wrong, they are wrong for the same reasons once minor out transgression will follow. The “Psychological” Version on refers to the constant redefinition of self that police members experience as they progress from accepting minor gratuities to more serious corruption.   “There is a continuum from one the other which involve a serious of stages each of which require a moral decision to be mode. The redefinition of self may be so strong that the individual is discourage from talking that next step into corruption.

This work tries to focuses on this important phenomenon whereby police members are drawn into criminality gradually and if they do not give it up along the way, they will eventually get involved in serious crime. The “slippery slope” theory and erosion theory assist in explaining why so many good cope get drawn into criminality based pertinent individual case studies, including personal experiences will be highlighted and the various consequences that occurs when a police agency pretends t   he problem does not exist and eventually the scandal cannot be contained. The consequences of a police organization’s bad recruitment policies have been compared to letting a worm into an apple the entire organization is eventually negatively affected. The serious consequences of noble-cause corruption is also illuminated as the general consequences including the public’s negative perception and loss of confidence in a police service that is perceived to be corrupt.

National security entails the ability of Nigeria to advance her interest and objectives to contain instability, control crime elimination corruption improve the welfare and quality of life of every citizen (Obasenjo, 1999). Among the core issues of national security are law and order. National security has also been defined as the “aggregates of the security interest of all individuals, communities, ethnic groups, political entities and institutions which inhabit the territory of Nigeria. In his interpretation of the aforesaid definition, Mohammed (2006) concludes that National Security from any perspectiveis about safeguarding the interest of the citizenry and providing the type of atmosphere that is free of threats that could inhibit the pursuit of the good of all. It is about the processes and measures required to preserve law and order.”

National Security is an important concern in the life    of a person, group or nation. Brown (1982:21) holds that the concern for the security of a nation is undoubtedly as old as the nation-state itself. In the nation-state, the central feature in the quest for national security is the concern for the survival, peace and progress of individuals, groups and the society as a whole. National security has been construed in different ways, each of which emphasizes vital factors underlying the idea. However, it t national should be noted that each of these conceptions, highlight just one aspect of what actually is a more embracing idea. Brennan (1961:22) holds that national security is the protection of national survival. While Ray (1987:248-249) says that national security is to be understood in terms of the desire and capacity for self-defense. Goldstein (1999.79) sees national security as closely connected to the preservation of the borders of a state and as mainly construed in terms of the power to maintain a government’s sovereignty within its territory.

According to Hare (1973:86-89), national security is to be construed as the confrontation of threats to peace in the society. They editors of the Africa Research Bulletin (2000:13931-55) construe national security in terms of the avoidance of conflicts lives of people in the society. They also see national security in terms of the diverse groups in the society. However, O’Brien (1995:100) in explicating  a somewhat different idea of national security argues that security is construct as more than just safety from the violence whether military economic or sexual. In fact, environmental issues count as security problems.

The concern for national security has led to the development of various approach to the issue. There is the military, economic and human resources development approach to national human security. With regard to the military approach to national security, Ochoche (1998:106), holds that nation security focuses on the amassment of military armaments, personnel and expenditure. Galtung (1982:96). Argues that the police approach to security is justified on the basis that only a strong police force can deter attacks on internal security and threat of attacks on peace and order as well as provides the means of fighting undeterred attacks. However, it should be noted that here that in the case of Nigeria, the vest size of the police force has not resulted in a corresponding increase in the maintenance of traditional functions which Heywood (1997:360:363) rightly identifies as the maintenance of the security and of the state and society, the maintenance of domestic and civil order and the provision of humanitarian services.

Contrary to popular and reasonable expectations the police in Nigeria have been used for largely negative purposes involving the oppression, Terrori (1997:365) says that the police in Nigeria have been used for the purpose of suppressing popular involvement in politic and civil liberties. It is also used to curtail the activities of unions, opposition groups and populace demonstrations and censorship. This trend has been particularly prevalent under military regimes. Therefore, Heywood (1997:370) concludes that rather than be the solution to Nigeria’s national security, National development and national integration problems, the police has compounded and perpetuated them.

According to Ochoche (1998:113) the police in Nigeria, as in many other African countries, has not been able to maintain domestic security, defend the national interest nor uphold the prevention of lives and property of the citizens. The failure of the police in Nigeria to fulfill its constitutional role has ensured that the police has remained distracted and has failed to distinguish itself in the political realm of life into which has intruded. It seems that one of the major reason why the police in Nigeria have to effectively maintain national security is because they have mainly uphold regime and personal security in the form of corruption and criminality. Thus, Luckham (1998:12-13) holds that in a very fundamental sense national security is a public good and not the private property of the state nor of particular dominant interest. According to Luckham (1998:13), there can exist a tension or contradiction between the manifest and latent functions of security. This is especially the case where the police are employed as an instrument of state coercion to oppress, exploit extort and terrorize the citizenry. (central to the failure of the police approach to national operational efficiency, institutional solidarity and stability. In our view, other crucial factors that led to the failure of the police approach to national security in Nigeria has been that situation in which, as Hutchful (1998:601), says, the police has failed to achieve operational efficiency, institutional solidarity and stability. In our view, other crucial factors that led to the failure of the police were the inability to uphold the principles of truth, justice, respect for human the life and compassion towards other human beings in the society. Judging from the above positions, it is obvious that there is a direct relationship between police corruption and national security. This is more so when we tend to have a police force that in the eyes of the public is exceedingly corrupt and despised by Nigerians.

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

The persistent security problems and the inability of the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) in ensuring security and safety of life and property in the country are worrisome. The sources of security challenges in the country are numerous and cannot be blamed on one part of the system alone.

They vary from the government to the police down to the people in the society. On the part of the police, there are ,many inadequacies and problems which stand as obstacles responsible for its abysmal performance. Most Nigerians describe police as a mostly crowd of lazy, inefficient, corrupt uniformed men and women contributing to the perpetrating of crimes such as mass killing, intimidation, rape, extrajudicial killings/summary execution and other heinous crimes against citizens they are paid to protect (Uhunmwuangho and Aluforo, 2011). According to Ikeji (2013) that the escalation of violence in the north of Nigeria perpetrated by Boko Haram today is linked with the police extra- judicial killing of the leader of the group, “Mohammed Yusuf” in July 2009 in Borno state.

It is also common with the police to falsely label innocent people as people as armed robbers, while the real criminals are working freely in the society doing what they know to do best. They falsified post mortem and to worsen the matter, people either criminals or none criminal disappear from there custody without good explanations and families of the innocent victims are faced with extortion.

The Nigeria Force (2008) in the annual report noted that the police is handicapped because of combination of factors that played them, among which are: lack of resources, poor government support, poor condition of services lack of appropriate training and ill equipped workforce.  Coped with this are the issue of police extortion and corruption and other vices common among the police system which contributes to their lack of efficiency. Alemika (1999) posit that police corruption is a serious issue because they are expected to be moral as law- enforcement agents. If the police which were employed and catered for with the peoples money to protect and detect crimes are themselves corrupt and also a party to crimes, then the society is at mercy and grace of the criminal. The above among many others contributed to the police and the challenges of insecurity in the country.

OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

The main objective of this work is to examine police corruption and the extent to which it undermines national security. In the same vein, the research work seeks to achieve the following minor objectives;

• To examine the various facts of police corruption
• To examine the theories of police corruption
• To examine the cause of police corruption in Nigeria
• To find out whether corruption a challenge to police in curbing crimes in the society
• To examine the native and scope of police attempt a possible generalization
• To provide useful recommendations for policy implementation aimed at curbing police corruption in Nigeria

NIGERIA POLICE AND THE CHALLENGES OF SECURITY IN NIGERIA