Budget 2012 (7) – Reforming The Police By Nasir Ahmad El-Rufai

We conclude our review of the state
of the Nigeria Police today, starting
with correcting some errors in last
week’s column. I am grateful to two
of my twitter followers that drew my
attention to them. Lord Lugard lived
between 1858 and 1945, so could
not have formed the Hausa
Constabulary in 1861! I have
rechecked my source, and cross-
checked with other sources. I can
confirm that the first police-like force
set up in what became Nigeria was
the Consular Guard of 30 men set
up in Lagos in 1861.
The Hausa Guard was formed in
1863, and became Hausa
Constabulary in 1879 by an
Ordinance. Lugard first came to
Nigeria in 1894 to negotiate a treaty
with the Emir of Borgu, and then
returned in 1897 as commander of
the West African Frontier Force
(WAFF). He became Commissioner
of the Northern Protectorate in
1900, had conquered the emirates
by 1903. I thank my friends for the
observation.
It is obvious by now that we will
never have a functioning Nigerian
state without an effective police
force. It is also clear that the
practice of splitting and outsourcing
police functions to new, equally ill-
trained paramilitary organizations
has not served our nation well, nor
resolved the challenges of policing
and law enforcement. In a nation
that seeks to get things done, all
efforts ought to have been directed
at making the police work, with
organizations like ICPC, EFCC,
Security and Civil Defence Corps
and the Federal Road Safety
Commission as departments of a
reformed, well-funded, better
trained and effective Federal Police.
An analysis of the national budgets
for the Nigeria Police since 1980
reveals a pattern of continuous
under-funding. Apart from 1983,
under the Shagari administration
when the Police got allocated 10.7%
of the national budget, in all other
years, including 2011 and 2012,
the Police with its nearly 400,000
staff got allocated an average lower
than 5%. Furthermore, when the
funds are released, the
headquarters, zonal and area
commands with-hold substantial
amounts leaving pretty little for
intelligence-gathering, street patrols
and policing at the divisional and
station levels where most of the law
enforcement is done. This must
change.
As chair of the Public Service Reform
Team (PSRT), I was shocked to learn
that the take-home pay of a police
constable in 2006 was a mere
N7,000 monthly. The private in the
Nigerian Army then earned N11,000
which got me wondering what kind
of nation would give a gun with
bullets to a man, put him on the
beat and pay such a low wage and
expect proper policing. The PSRT
doubled the police base pay with a
proviso for it to be increased by
10% annually for the ensuing 5
years to bring it near to the salaries
of the armed forces. I wonder if that
policy decision has been
implemented.
The total budget of the Police sub-
sector in 2012 is N331.2bn
(N328.5bn in 2011) made up of
Ministry of Police Affairs (N5.8bn, in
2011, N13.3bn), Police Formations
and Command (N307.9bn, 2011 –
N295.6bn), Police Service
Commission (N2.5bn, 2011 –
N2.6bn) and Federal Government’s
Contribution to the Police Reform
Fund (N15bn, 2011 – N25bn). The
Ministry of Police is a wasteful
bureaucracy that controls police
pensions and awards contracts for
some police facilities. It can be
scrapped and savings there-from
transferred to Police functions
proper.
The Police Formations and
Commands’ budget for 2012
consists of N290.7bn for the
personnel cost of between 380,000
and 400,000 police officers. The
overhead cost of running 1,115
police divisions, 5,515 police
stations and 5,000 police posts
nationwide is a mere N8.1bn. If we
hypothetically adopt the police
division, station and post as bases
for equal overheads distribution,
this works out to about N696,000
annually per division, station and
post – even with zero going to
headquarters, zonal and area
commands. This is still less than
N2,000 per day to run a police
station – which explains why the
stations have no stationery, crime
diary and even biros to take down
statements!.
One way to achieve this is to
restructure and redesign the Police
budget such that each post, station,
division, area, state and zonal
commands as well as headquarters
have their budgets and bank
accounts. Budgeted funds should
then be transferred direct to each
unit and the heads held
accountable for the judicious use of
funds. This is difficult to do but not
impossible. The Ministry of Finance
implemented that with respect to
our foreign missions when we found
that the headquarters in Abuja with-
held mission funds without reasons.
The system has worked better since
2005 when it was introduced. The
same system may be considered for
Police Formations.
The breakdown of the overheads
reveals some interesting spending
priorities. The entire training budget
of the Nigeria Police is a miserly
N851 million, with an additional N55
million for travel associated with the
training. Compare this with the
N14bn budgeted for the Armed
Forces training and its institutions!
The security vote (including
operations) for the entire Nigeria
Police is N259 million – less than N1
million daily to spend on informants,
intelligence gathering and patrols,
out of the N3.1 billion budgeted
daily on security – and yet, the
Police is the first line of defence
against criminal conduct. In sharp
contrast, the NSA with his less than
100 advisory staff has N950 million
as security and operations vote for
2012. This is part of the reason we
opined that the nation has failed the
Police, and yet blames it for failing
us!
On return to democracy in 1999,
the Nigeria Police was some
140,000 strong. This critical
shortfall was addressed through the
massive recruitment of some
40,000 police officers per annum
between 2000 and 2005.
Sadly, this well-intentioned decision
enabled the recruitment of several
shoddy characters into the Police,
thereby compounding its
institutional challenges. This
“Millennium Police” as they are
referred to, need to be re-screened,
retrained in better-equipped and
upgraded institutions, and the
dodgy characters weeded out for
Nigeria to have the police it
deserves. Related to this is the need
to recall, retrain and post to proper
police duties, the estimated
120,000 police officers currently
posted to undertake “VIP protection”
that is serving as orderlies, hand-
bag carriers and other irrelevant
duties for the political and economic
elite. The police ought to be
deployed protecting the general
public not a select few, and certainly
not given demeaning jobs of
opening doors and holding bags
and briefcases of the rich and
famous. The IGP should put an end
to this.
The Police Reform Fund was the
initiative of Dr. Ibrahim Yakubu
Lame when he was Minister of Police
Affairs. A bill was drafted in 2010 to
establish the fund to finance a
medium-term (six-year) programme
of reforming the Nigeria Police to be
contributed by the three tiers of
government. Even though the bill
was not enacted into law, budgetary
provisions have been made since
then – a total of N40bn in 2011-12,
with a similar contribution by the
state and local governments. Where
are these monies? Who controls the
fund in the absence of the enabling
law and the Trust fund? These
issues need further scrutiny in light
of a recent media report credited to
Parry Osayande that the PSC
requires an allocation of N420bn per
annum for 5 years to “implement its
reform of the Police Force”. As civil
society watchdog NOPRIN has
rightly observed, the current state
of the Police is largely attributable to
the failures of the PSC in the last 12
years. It is therefore the body least
qualified to reform the police or
manage fund for its improvement.
This is the same PSC that kicked out
some of its finest officers (like Nuhu
Ribadu) and demoted a dead police
officer! The PSC should reform itself
first before anyone takes it
seriously!
For our police to regain its
effectiveness, its officers and men
need to be better paid, with
adequate housing allowances to
enable them afford accommodation
wherever they may be posted. In
2006, as part of our work in the
Public Service Reform Team, an
eight-year N200bn barracks
development programme was
approved for the Nigeria Police
nationwide, which included the
rehabilitation of their run-down
facilities. Sadly, like most things left
behind for successors, the
programme floundered. This needs
to be addressed in lieu of special,
preferential mortgage facilities for
police officers to own their homes.
The Boko Haram insurgency claimed
the lives of more police officers than
any other uniformed service. The
total welfare of police officers must
include the review of the insurance,
injury and death benefits payable to
their dependants. various police
reform committees
The Police needs adequate
transportation, communications,
armament and logistic technologies
to be able to respond to criminal
activities in a timely manner. In the
2012 Budget, N52 million has been
provided for motorcycles, N203
million for vehicles, N310 million for
vans, and N596 million for armored
personnel carriers. The Police
Command also proposes to spend
N431 million on arms and
ammunition, N84 million for video
security surveillance systems in
Borno, Kano, Oyo, Edo and Anambra
States, N52 million for automatic
fingerprint identification system,
N84 million for forensic and DNA
test laboratory, and N241 million for
explosive ordinance disposal
equipment for the Anti-Bomb
Squad.
Other significant items of
expenditure in the 2012 Budget
include N295 million for anti-riot
equipment, N450 million for bullet-
proof vests gear, N243 million for
anti-terrorism equipment (whatever
that means), N165 million for
security intelligence equipment, and
N271 million for UHF walkie-talkies
and rehabilitation of its outdated
analog UHF communications
system. The budget for barracks
rehabilitation and construction is
N585 million. These are mostly
grossly inadequate. And by far the
most disgraceful is the state of
police communications network –
expensive, outdated and insecure
for the challenges of the 21st
century, but preserved due to
entrenchment of vested interests.
This is one area urgently needing
focused implementation.
Another lingering issue related to
the reform of the Police is whether
the pre-1966 arrangement is not
better – that is one in which State
Police will operate side by side the
federal police. Those in favour recall
with nostalgia when our police
forces worked and cooperated,
apprehending criminals and being
widely respected. Those against
admit this but point out that a lot
has changed since then in terms of
demography, technology and
propensity to criminal behaviour.
The antagonists of State Police also
add that the various regional
governments used their police to
intimidate, harass and victimize
political opponents. Enabling our
imperial state governors to have
their personal police would bring
back those dark days of oppression,
it is argued.
My position and that of our party
the CPC are clear. We support the
amendment of the Constitution to
allow establishment of state and
community police. This is because I
believe that policing is largely a
local, community-level matter. It
makes no sense to hire a person
from Calabar, send him to Maiduguri
in search of criminals or insurgents
without understanding the
language, culture and dominant
religion of the area. This
amendment will also entail the
redefinition of our criminal law to
distinguish between federal crimes
(which the federal police will have
jurisdiction) and state crimes which
the state police will handle.
Jurisdiction over interstate crimes
will necessarily be vested in the
federal police, and our courts will be
restructured jurisdictionally
accordingly. This also means for
instance, that the Penal Code of
Northern Nigeria and the Criminal
Code applicable to the Southern
States need to be amended.
Is there likelihood of gross abuse by
the state governors in such a
scenario? Certainly. The governors
will try to employ all their erstwhile
thugs as the new State Police. And
they will attempt unleashing them
on the opposition and political
opponents. It is our duty as citizens
to stand up to them. Not doing the
right thing because we fear the
abuse by some of 36 individuals is
not an option. The governors must
be checked by the power of citizens.
And unless the police is made to
work, we will not have a functioning
state. And that will be a very sad
thing indeed.

Nasir Ahmad El-Rufai
elrufai@aol.com