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Police Reform Act
Operations management (MBA 706)
Lagos State University
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LAGOS STATE UNIVERSITY, OJO
FACULTY OF MANAGEMENT SCIENCES,
MASTERS IN HUMAN RESOURCES AND INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS (MHRIR)
ASSIGNMENT:
POLICE REFORM ACT
(NO. 11)
OYEFESO, Oluwaseyi Rashidat
COURSE TITLE AND CODE:
LABOUR POLICE AND ADMINISTRATION (MHR, 813)
DR. O. F. IDOWU
LECTURER-IN-CHARGE
JULY, 2023
Introduction Government has the responsibility to protect the lives and property of its citizens. Therefore, in an ideal situation, the exercise of its power should be guided by that purpose. On the other hand, the police is, inherently, the most visible element for the exercise of this governmental responsibility within the domestic environment of the state; the primary enforcer of the state laws for social control for preservation of lives and property in the state (Yahaya, 2019; Ibekwe & Aduma, 2020). From Nigeria’s political independence in 1960 to the contemporary times, the ability of the police to aid the government in performing this role in the country has been more of a mirage than real success. The surprising aspect of the whole issue of the police’s inability to function expectedly is that the bulk of the problem has always lied with it; the police, rather than securing lives and property, have been the primary destroyer of the same (Osah & Akpuh, 2021). The foregoing experiences form the basis for the demand for reformation of the Nigeria Police, even from the era of nearly 30 decades of military interregnum. The ad hoc creation of police units with military posture, including the disbanded Special Anti-robbery Squad (SARS), evolved as attempts to re-equip the institution to protect lives and property within the society, but rather than achieve the goals, the situation of domestic insecurity has worsened (Ibekwe & Aduma, 2020). So, the clamour for police reform has also heightened. Moreover, the inability of the various regimes to keep to their promise of comprehensively reforming the police has largely contributed to the menace. From the whole saga of police malfunction, the associated losses, and the anti-police protests, certain identifiable factors of hindrance to successful, citizens’ friendly, policing in Nigeria can be pinpointed in relation to the operations of the defunct SARS as explained in the preceding section (Adio-Moses & Adeparusi, 2019). Background on the Nigerian Police Reform Act 2020 The Nigerian Police Act was enacted by the previous civilian administration. The Act became operative on the 17th day of September 2020, and it replaced the former Police Act of 2004 which was modelled after the old colonial law of 1943. It also came after the disbandment of the SARS unit of the police. The explanatory memorandum to the act narrates that the Act is to provide effective accountability in police operation and management of its resources. The Act provides for an appropriate funding framework for the Police Force to ensure all police formations are appropriately funded for effective policing (Akinlabi, 2017; Osah & Alfred,
Funding, officers’ welfare, wellness, and safety: The welfare and safety of police officers is critical not only for the officers, their colleagues, and the NPF, but also to public safety. The proper implementation of measures designed to guarantee officer wellness and safety is essential to boosting morale and increasing productivity. Demilitarisation of policing: Through a new training and doctrine system, the ethos of policing needs to be moved away from the dominant militaristic orientation unto a focus on community strategies that allow for co-ownership of public safety. Ensuring police accountability: Independent law enforcement oversight structures must be strengthened via a reform of the Police Service Commission (PSC) and ensuring that it is sufficiently resourced and empowered to hold the police accountable to the community, including through community policing structures as required in Section 113 to 115 of the Police Act 2020. Promoting transparency: All policies, protocols, and force orders regarding officer-involved incidents, including use of force policies, should be publicly available, and all investigations, prosecutions, and dispositions regarding officer-involved incidents should be reported to the public quarterly. Use of force and protection of human life: Police policies must make clear that force can be no greater than what is objectively necessary and proportionate to the threat posed at that specific moment, and officers must be trained to abide by this principle of proportionality. Police funding, welfare and pay: The government should declare a state of emergency on police funding in Nigeria. A panel should be constituted to advise the President on the actual realistic level of funding that is needed to have an effective police service in the country. Police Act 2020 full implementation: The Police and PSC should constitute a joint committee to produce an implementation plan with timelines on how the provisions of the Act will be delivered and socialized amongst the rank and also compute the funding that will be required to adequately implement all the provisions of the Act. Strategic assessment: The first phase in the reform of the Police involves a thorough analysis of the issues, environment of operation, institutional gaps and legal frameworks, which inform policing services in Nigeria. It is undertaken to identify underlying problems within the police that will guide the reform agenda. Strategic planning: The importance of strategy in the NPF cannot be over-emphasized. It will help to guide and focus the entire work of the NPF to be service driven by democratic norms, values, and best practices. A good strategy will help to build a force that is resilient, effective, efficient, and competitive.
Implementation: This requires a set of actions (short, medium and long term) that will make the difference when implemented within the Police. The starting point for the implementation of the strategy is the identification of the changes required to bridge the gap between the old way of doing things within the Police and the new ways things need to be done especially in areas of skills, processes and procedures, systems and structures, organisational and cultural changes. Evaluation: It is envisaged that a Presidential Working Group on Police Reform will be constituted. It will develop a monitoring and evaluation framework for the implementation of the roadmap to ascertain progress and effectiveness. Challenges of the Nigerian Reform Act 2020 Certain core areas or aspects of proper reform of the Nigeria Police can be gleaned from the preceding segments of this paper hence the missing links in Nigeria’s Police reforms include that Ibekwe and Aduma (2020): (i) The attempts made, so far, have hardly promoted any serious form of normativeness, that is, the establishment of generally accepted and implemented work ethics, norms, or standards. Rather than a coherent and cooperative effort toward achieving the same goal of promoting security of lives and property within the country, the different teams of the same police often dispatch their functions under differing commands, based on whose interest they must serve at any instance. This is an indication of the omission of normativeness, coherence, and cooperation from the various reforms so far made; (ii) It is obvious that the reforms have failed to reorganise the police in ways that can help to rid it of the colonial mentality and mode of operation, which are not citizens- friendly. As aptly averred by Asogwah, Ugwu, and Odom (2005), the police in Nigeria has often functioned, like in the colonial settings, as a tool of oppression instead of a promoter of justice, public safety, and domestic security. Nigeria’s Police is still organised as a quasi-military squad. Until this orientation is changed, the Nigeria Police cannot effectively protect lives and property in the country; (iii) Because the reforms have failed to establish uniform modes of operation, which promotes fair application of police operational rules across people of the different strata of the society (Akinlabi, 2017; Agbiboa, 2015), they have failed also to achieve any kind of socio-political change in the level of commitment to cooperation between the police and the populace. Therefore, the reforms have often missed the
Recommendations From the findings of this discourse, and borrowing from the entire police reform saga, especially as it relates to SARS and the #EndSARS protest, the following recommendations have been made as means of ensuring a successful, citizens-friendly Nigeria Police: The government, in collaboration with other domestic security stakeholders, should organise serious and rigorous, multi-stage, re-orientation programmes for the police officers. The officers should be engaged in such programmes in batches and only those who successfully complete the programmes should be retained in Nigeria Police; Such re-orientation programmes should be based on character reformation, ethics of moderate application of force and violence, as well as equal application of the operational standards of the police to all the people across the Nigerian populace, regardless of their class differences; An appropriate means of monitoring and reporting of the extent of application of the recommended operational ethics should be put in place to ensure that the policies and all associated ethical codes are implemented accordingly. This can consist of the creation of a department that would be held accountable for this role of monitoring the activities of police officers and for arrest and prosecution of the associated defaulters; To regain the confidence and cooperation of the masses, the government should bring, always to justice, the perpetrators of human rights violations among the police officers. The process of sanctioning errant officers should be timely and open to the public; Instead of the usual one-man-mandate, the government should create panels of inquiry for necessary investigations and recommendations, and of security experts for putting the panel outcomes into operable and worthwhile ethical standard and policy formulations, as well as allow the participation of the members of the public in the different stages of the reform process.
References Adio-Moses, R. O. & Adeparusi, B. A. (2019). Police reform: A gateway to crime prevention and a Secured Nigerian state. Ibadan Journal of Peace & Development, 9 (2), 65-81. Akinlabi, O. M. (2017). Young people, procedural justice and police legitimacy in Nigeria. Policing and Society: An International Journal of Research and Policy, 27 (4), 419- 438. Asogwah, F., Ugwu, D., & Odom, C. (2005). Climate of Impunity: A Report on the Use of Torture by the Nigeria Police. Lagos: Civil Liberties Organisation. Chow, A. R. (2020). The Nigerian government has pledged to #EndSARS and reform the police. This Isn’t the First Time They’ve Made that Promise”. time/5904345/endsarshistory-nigeria/ Accessed on August 25, 2021. Ibekwe, C. S. & Aduma, O. N. (2020). Presidential control of the nigeria police: constitutional reforms for organizational performance development and political neutrality”. Global Journal of Politics and Law Research, Vol, No, pp-79. Osah, G. & Akpuh, C. C. (2021). Structural challenges, police reform proposals and protection of lives and property in Nigeria: Insights from SARS. KIU Journal of Humanities, 6(3), 27-34. Osah, G. & Alfred, C. (2020). Safeguarding a multicultural and multi-ethnic society: Rethinking state, local and community policing in Nigeria. Hyuku Journal of Politics and Development, 5 (1), 1-21. Yahaya, J. U. (2022). An appraisal of security restructuring in Nigeria’s emerging debate on state police and indigenous vigilante groups: A case study of civilian joint task force in the fight against terrorism in the north-East, 2009-2018. Journal of International Politics, 2(1), 33-41.
Police Reform Act
Course: Operations management (MBA 706)
University: Lagos State University
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