Again the argument goes on, exposing the typical Nigerian character: heading at a breakneck speed towards a remedy that has little or nothing to do with the cause of or solution to the problem at hand.
The Nigerian Police Force(NPF) is unable to meet up with it’s statutory responsibility. That’s a fact. But another fact is that the reason is not the absence of state police. We all know the reason: the general decay in the Nigerian system of which the NPF is a part. All the states of the federation contributed adequately to the destruction of the Nigerian system. Merely introducing state police will not suddenly bridge the gap in policing.
Most of the factors that are responsible for non-optimal police performance will remain. Additionally, new problems will emerge. People forget that at one time in the past the NPF performed satisfactorily, was an elite club into which many healthy young men and women aspired but only dreamt of getting, not for the money but for the love of the performance associated with it.
Somewhere along the line something happened. What was that? Disappearance of state police? No. It is more believable that the poison that bastardized the NPF was hatched outside of the NPF. Creating a new police force in the larger society, leaving all other debilitating factors unattended to will simply make matters worse.
Additional problems that will emerge with the creation of state police include:
1. Possible clashes between state police and NPF
2. Abuse of state police by state chief executives
3. Underfunding of state police force including non-payment of salaries, among others.
Federal government institutions usually command much better respect than state government institutions. The level of maturity exhibited by the federal centre is clearly higher than that exhibited by most states. The NPF, among similar organizations, is one of the institutions that exercise the strongest unifying forces on Nigerians.
Why would it not be more attractive to put back such a beautiful concept to what it should be for every Nigerian to enjoy. Ordinarily, the concept of state police existing side by side with NPF should not itself be a horrible one, but considering our current state of affairs in general, it is safer, cheaper and quicker to purify and strengthen the NPF (which will only be possible if treated alongside the larger society) than creating state police to complement.
A time of deep divisions and anger in the country is hardly a good time to begin the introduction of such a potentially troublesome project as state policing.
