A pro-democracy organization, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria,, HURIWA, has dismissed as cosmetic and mere showmanship the decision of the acting Inspector General of police Mohammed Adamu to disband the Federal Special Anti-robbery Squad, FSARS.
DAILY POST reported earlier that the Acting Inspector General of Police, Mohammed Adamu, ordered the immediate disbandment of the Federal SARS, Special Investigation Panel and Special Tactical Squad.
But the group, instead asked the new head of the nation’s police force to lead a crusade for the comprehensive reforms of the near-moribund Nigeria police force so as to most appropriately and professionally, tackle the hydra-headed violent crimes all across Nigeria.
HURIWA in a statement to DAILY POST on Monday, said “the Police force stinks of institutional decay and professional incompetence.”
The statement was signed by the National Coordinator of HURIWA, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko and the National media Affairs Director Miss Zainab Yusuf.
The group argued that the police requires far reaching science-based surgical response mechanisms to bring its operational modes to conform with global best practices.
HURIWA condemned the widespread practice whereby crime victims were extorted and exploited by the police before the operatives can embark on their routine law enforcement duties.
The Rights group said the fallen standards of policing in Nigeria is such that requires more than the suggested 30,000 annual recruitment of cops as mooted by the Police Service Commission, adding that the fundamental problem of policing in Nigeria is quality and skills and not the quantity of police operatives recruited.
It stated that the challenges facing the new head of the police is such that does not require quick fix fire brigade approaches but rather would take deliberate, decisive, rationally fine-tuned actionable measures, including the updating of relevant legal frameworks to enable the birth of a state police in addition to a rejuvenated and properly professionalize federal police in Nigeria.
The Rights group stated that the current Nigeria Police force is administered on PAY-AS-YOU-GO -basis going by the obvious fact that police protection and other services are only given to the highest bidders.
HURIWA said it was because of the collapse of the Nigeria Police force that the Army has almost started performing the usually routine policing duties spelt out by the Constitution.
It said that most police operatives out-bribe each other to be posted to carry handbags for wives of top political office holders and foreign investors for pecuniary benefits.
The group, therefore, charged the new police chief to be meticulous in the discharge of his functions and not go about chasing cheap media popularity by making policy decisions that are mere populist but lacks existential policing benefits in the long run.
HURIWA stated that Nigeria has more than two dozens past recommendations on the reforms of the police which were never acted upon.
It also just tasked the president, retired military major General Muhammadu Buhari to sign into law the recently amended constitutional provisions which has created state police in Nigeria.
It said “The new police chief must be aware that virtually all the past civilian administrations right from 1999 including the National/Constitutional conferences hosted by two previous administrations had produced voluminous reports on strategies for attaining fundamental reforms of the policing institution in Nigeria.
“Some of these recommendations should be implemented through legislative and executive mechanisms.
“The Nigeria police force as it is presently, is institutionally too weak to effectively confront the emerging sophisticated violent crimes.
“The police Act needs to be amended and updated to provide for technology – based crime fighting strategies just as the disturbing phenomenon of the use of physical and psychological torture by police on suspects which are rife are contained and the indicted police operatives are prosecuted and punished.”
HURIWA noted regrettably that the immediate past police Inspector General had through crass incompetence and disrespect for the Constitution accumulated multimillion Naira legal damages won in courts of competent jurisdiction by Nigerians who are victims of human rights abuses and illegal arrests and detention by the highly compromised Nigeria Police most especially when Ibrahim Kpodum Idriss was the IGP.
The group charged the newly appointed IGP “to clean up the police force of too many bad eggs, publish and implement a policing manuals that would absolutely prohibit extralegal killings to suspects and use of torture.”
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