By GEB
The idea of three states in the Southwest geopolitical zone, namely Oyo, Ogun, and Lagos, launching a joint security operation against terrorism and other acts of criminality is worthy o
f extension to other regions. Their plan includes a security monitor along the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway. This step in the right direction speaks to both the political maturity of state leaders and their political will to secure their areas of jurisdiction.
After all, and deriving from Section 14(2) (b) of the extant constitution, without the security and welfare of the people, any other matter cannot be a worthwhile concern of government. However, to overcome the very grave security challenge posed by terrorists and other categories of criminals, a decentralised policing system is a fundamental necessity in this country. Put differently, a multi-pronged strategy is needed: collaboration and decentralisation are two urgent components of it.
Given that Nigeria is in a state of low-intensity war against terrorism, collaboration among the three tiers of government, security agencies, and the citizens is essential. All security is local, but the only guarantee of local security is collective security. And this is only as strong –or weak- as the unalloyed commitment of the collaborating parties.
The 1999 Constitution is clear on the duty of the government to ensure the security and welfare of the people. It is the fulfilment of this primary duty that sustains the many constitutional rights of citizens, including the right to personal liberty (Section 35), freedom of movement (Section 41), and the dignity of the human person (Section 34(1).
There can be no disputing that in this existential terrorist threat to Nigeria, collaboration, cooperation, and joint action are a reasonable course of action. For, as clearly seen in the northern parts where communities, local councils, and even state governments have resorted to self-help, having been more or less abandoned by the federal government to their unhappy fate, the terrorists have literally taken charge. States and communities now negotiate their peace with criminals, terrorist groups exact periodic payments, collect taxes, and set conditions for farmers to work their lands. These are frightening indications of a failing Nigerian state that must be resisted.
The three–state joint action should be urgently expanded to include the three other states of Osun, Ekiti, and Ondo. The simple reason is that, given the recent situation whereby terrorists fleeing the strikes in Sokoto State have relocated to adjoining states, contiguous states must key into the joint operation to deny escape routes and havens for criminals running away from the pressure of the operation. In addition, it will be worth the while of other states in the country to team up for a stronger security campaign.
Secondly, the interstate joint operation, as reported, indicates that it is focused on security threats on the major highways and the urban areas. Given the propensity with which kidnappers and terrorists operate on the highways, such a focus is instructive, but it is nevertheless narrow. Terrorists reside in the forests and the bushes from where they launch attacks against communities and road travellers. The designers of this operation should also reconfigure their strategy to zoom in on the nooks and crannies of the forests. Had collaboration among constituted authorities been more visible, perhaps the problem would not have degenerated to the current level, whereby the adversary often dictates its terms and conditions for a truce.
Another clear and urgent need is to decentralise policing so that sub-national entities in the federation can take committed ownership and firm control of security in their respective jurisdictions. This is one critical component of a genuine federation in line with global best practices. Nigeria should not be an aberrant federation within the global community. In specific reference to the Southwest, as far back as 2014, a research-based publication on ‘Regional Autonomy’ by three groups, namely Yoruba Assembly, Afenifere Renewal Group (ARG), and Yoruba Academy, had ‘demanded’ for the ‘Southwest States of Nigeria…a State Police system to ensure an effective security system in their domains’. To this end, they suggested that ‘law enforcement and maintenance of public order should be on the residual list and not on the exclusive list [in the constitution]. The group offered persuasive reasons. It asserted that ‘a localised police system will ensure that its personnel are indigenes, or at least residents of the locality and who would invariably know most people within the area, thereby making the identification of anti-social elements and intruding criminals easier’.
Furthermore, ‘given the current state of insecurity [in the country], the need to tackle security challenges locally is imperative, because the proximity of the state security system to the community will enable the leverage for better vigilance, crime prevention, awareness and intelligence gathering’. Also, state authorities ‘will [then] be more accountable to the people on security matters…’
The twin matters of decentralising the Police system and collaboration among jurisdictions to ensure collective security are not new. There are many recommendations from private and government sources concerning collaboration within the security architecture, and also localising policing.
The 2014 National Conference recommended to the Goodluck Jonathan administration that the Police ‘be moved from the Exclusive Legislative List to the Concurrent List’. The Conference also decided that ‘For any state that requires it, there shall be a State Police at the State level, to be established, funded, and controlled by the State’; ‘State laws may also provide for Community Policing’.
The first manifesto of the All Progressives Congress (APC) party in 2015 promised the electorate that it would ‘begin widespread consultation to amend the Constitution to enable States and Local Governments to employ State and Community Police to address the peculiar needs of each community…’ However, the Buhari administration ignored this promise. In 2018, the ‘Report of the APC Committee on True Federalism’ recommended, as part of the devolution of powers to the states, that the police be moved from the Exclusive List to the Concurrent List in the Constitution. Again, Buhari ignored this. The sitting President, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, had similarly promised ‘locally–based law enforcement institutions’, but it has yet to manifest. By its conceptualisation and general meaning, community policing cannot help but be desirable for a federation like Nigeria.
Interstate security cooperation is just the most recent step for regional integration by the southwest states. They have a philosophical, cultural, and infrastructural basis for this, thanks to the efforts of Chief Obafemi Awolowo in the First Republic. Prof. Wale Omole, in his guest lecture at the 40th anniversary of the Odu’a Group in 2016, proposed, among other options, that the states of the Southwest geopolitical zone ‘operationalise the Development Agenda for Western Nigeria (DAWN) as an interstate cross-boundary sustainable development strategy’.
To adapt from the lecture paper, until true federalism is achieved, nothing (except perhaps the political will) stops the states in the Southwest region from planning and executing joint security and development programmes and projects, to, in effect, continue regional integration from where Awolowo left off. Toward fulfilling the sacrosanct ‘primary purpose’ of governments at all levels, this is a development agenda that other geopolitical zones, too, may consider.
In this article