Egbetokun, deploy police officers properly

AS insecurity thrives nationwide, the submission of the Inspector-General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun, before the House of Representatives that is probing its causes deserves a critical evaluation. Appearing alongside the military service chiefs, Egbetokun pinpointed poor funding and short-handedness as the main culprits in the insecurity siege. But he left out another critical handicap: the diversion of the majority of police personnel from normal duties to VIP protection. He and President Bola Tinubu are duty-bound to reverse that travesty.

Egbetokun should take responsibility; he should fully implement the promise he made upon taking office to withdraw elite police personnel from private guard duties and deploy them effectively to protect all Nigerians.

Truly, the triggers of insecurity, and the inability of law enforcement to tame it are myriad, including the distorted single policing structure and other institutional constraints. Funding is one. As IG in 2016, Solomon Arase, who is currently Chairman of the Police Service Commission, revealed that the government underfunded the police by N1.17 trillion between 2011 and 2015.

The equipment gap is therefore critical. There are no vehicles for patrols and emergencies at the majority of the 1,537 divisional police headquarters in the country. Egbetokun lamented that though each station required at least four vehicles, many did not even have one.

His complaint of manpower shortage is perplexing. Citing the UN recommendation of 1:450 police officer to a citizen ratio, Egbetokun said: “The police also find themselves operating in a very difficult environment. The manpower in the police today is grossly inadequate. The United Nations ratio of 1 to 450 is not attainable in Nigeria as of today. Because the ratio in Nigeria is one to 1,000, this suggests that we need to double the manpower.”

This shortfall partly explains why criminals have overwhelmed the security system. In the first six weeks of the Tinubu Presidency, criminals slaughtered 555 Nigerians, victims of Islamic terrorists, bandits-kidnappers, separatist gunmen, Fulani herdsmen, highway robbers and cultists. Nowhere is safe despite the deployment of the military in internal security operations throughout the country.

Like his predecessors, Egbetokun’s failure to act on the deployment of about two-thirds of the 371,800-strong officers in illegal VIP guard duties will doom his tenure. His recent walk-back on his promise to withdraw them via a “clarification” from the Force spokesman reveals that like previous IGs, he is beholden to the self-entitled elite.

Successive IGs have similarly pussyfooted over the unjust privatisation of the police and failed miserably to protect other Nigerians. Officers who should be on field operations are used for demeaning domestic chores by the elite.

Therefore, simply recruiting more officers will not solve the problem because the police leadership will promptly deploy them illegally to VIP guard duties and leave Nigerians at the mercy of criminals.

The Minister of State for Police Affairs, Imaan Sulaiman-Ibrahim, recently disclosed that Tinubu had mandated that the wrongly deployed officers be withdrawn. Egbetokun should implement this. The subsequent deployment of the officers to protect all Nigerians will go a long way in reducing criminality. Nigerians should hold Sulaiman-Ibrahim, Egbetokun and Tinubu to their word.

Tinubu should fund the police adequately. He should cut luxuries and waste and redirect resources to funding and equipping the police.

Incidentally, Nigeria is the only federal entity in the world with a single police structure. This national folly leaves most of the country and its citizens unprotected.

Ultimately, Tinubu should lead a national programme for a constitutional amendment moving policing from the Exclusive Legislative List to the Concurrent List.