- Written by Benjamin Obiajulu Aduba -
“…He ordered the immediate release of all persons detained in police cells without lawful jurisdiction and reiterated his directive that no person should be detained beyond 24 hours, except otherwise permitted by law.
“…He said, All squads, teams or any other investigating outfit operating under whatever name are hereby dismantled with immediate effect and they are to be under the original structures recognised by police standards.
“…All intra-state and highway road blocks which constitute nuisance especially on the roads of Lagos, Edo and South-Eastern states should also be dismantled immediately…” – Acting Inspector-General of Police, Mohammed Abubakar
In three short sentences the Acting Inspector General of Nigeria Police may be on the way to re-establishing the rule of law in Nigeria. If people cannot be detained for longer than 24 hours; if all investigation would return to the proper recognized units; and if police and army roadblocks are removed from high ways and byways Nigeria would have taken the most desired step towards the rule of law.
Let us look into what could happen when each of these steps is taken.
• No detention beyond 24 hours.
Today, one’s enemies only need to lodge a complaint against one and pronto the accused is locked up. Read up all about this from Mr. Emeka Ugwuonye’s rapid fire reports from EFCC’s jail for full blown information. The accused and the accuser immediately become revenue source for some police officers or department. An army of police start collecting money from both sides, conducting zero investigation. And the accused becomes a hostage for the family. The family spends tons of money to feed, bribe and grease the hands of the hostage takers. This could last for months or even years. If the accused is paying more money than the accuser the accused could be released often without going to court at all and without any charge ever filed. Injustice in Excelsis Deo! If the accuser is paying more, then he could be held as long as the accused wants perhaps as long as a few years. Sadism at its worst! Meanwhile the cost to the nation in terms of housing, feeding, etc, of the accused keep escalating as an army of police is deployed to “take care of these men and women” doing time without committing any crime.
After a while the case could be charged to court clogging the court dockets and making it near impossible for judges to perform their judicial functions.
• Dismantling illegal investigative Units
The impact of this is almost the same as illegal detention above. A team of police officers would usually descend on a citizen and starts endless investigation into non existing crimes. This is usually without supervision except from the police officer who assigned them and without supervision from the Department of Public Prosecution. There would never be a time to conclude that sufficient evidence has been gathered to take the case to court or to conclude that no crime has been committed. The case can only conclude when enough money (can that time ever be reached?) has been collected. Meanwhile the number of officers that is available for deployment to legitimate investigation keeps dwindling. Any wonder that no crime is ever solved? The investigators are ill trained and ill equipped except on the tactics to use to extract more naira from the unfortunate victims of what can only be called state induced extortion. Three well publicized examples will do here. We are all aware of the alleged rape in Abia State University at Uturu, complete with videos of the rape. The police have not categorically declared the video a fraud nor arrested the culprits. Also late last year a Boston based pharmacist traveled to Nigeria on a business trip. He was shot dead in Imo. It has been a few months and there has not been any kind of reports on the incident. Finally there are the cases of people kidnapped including a commissioner in Anambra state and after the release of the kidnapped victim the matter dies without anybody knowing how the victim was released. These cases demonstrate the complexity of crime investigation in Nigeria. Were these case investigated by police under the supervision of police command all the way to DPP or were the investigation done under one of these illegal investigating units?
• Dismantling all High Way Road Blocks
This will bring joy to millions of hard working Nigerians who travel. Each time I go home, I get in trouble with my friends and family. I object to offering any money to the police in these road blocks but almost always one of my friends or relations would pop up N20 or whatever the going rate was for the road block. They would explain the reason for offending me as “brother/uncle this is Nigeria” and besides “brother you are here for only a week” and we have to live with these thieves after you are gone. It breaks my heart two different ways: my relations know that these are thieves stealing from them and are going along and know that they are helpless to do anything about it. Apart from the theft, traffic is tied up for hours as these officers process their transactions and it could get worse as the Onitsha incident of last week demonstrated. The nation could go up in flames because of one miscalculation. Imagine how many police officers could be released to do real police work. The economic impact from the “go slow” caused in this process including the opportunity cost can be staggering. The police absence form police duties account for the failure to resolve the Uturu rape incident or the death of the Boston pharmacist.
These are just a brief summary of the benefits that would accrue if these commands are enforced. But therein lies the rob! This is not the first time these orders were given. Why should we expect any difference? The truth is that if these orders are not enforced now they would eventually be enforced somehow. It will be best if police were to enforce it now as an order from their boss than when it is enforced on the orders of Mr. Uwazurike, the MASSOB boss. He has ordered his “boys” to dismantle the road blocks and his orders received widespread support in South East and perhaps in all Nigeria. If MASSOB, and MENDS, and OPC youths start dismantling the blocks there would be direct confrontation with the police and the result could be ugly no matter who wins.
Mr. Mohamed Abubakar, the Acting Inspector General of Police would have served Nigeria better than any of his predecessors if he merely enforced these three orders and did nothing more. Nigerians all and sundry, must help him enforce these orders for our mutual benefit. Enforcing these orders would have the equivalent impact of adding 100,000 officers to the police ranks without additional increase in payroll.
It will have the impact of injecting N1 trillion to the economy in 10 years.
Benjamin Obiajulu Aduba
Boston, Massachusetts
February 14, 2012
