Government should do what the private sector can not do – Part 2

In my first post on the 4 pillars of what governments must compulsorily do, I picked healthcare as the number one issue, where governments must take the lead… for the obvious reason that, without health, everything else is meaningless.

Security comes next because it is closely aligned with health. A secure environment enhances health. Security is one area where the government has exclusive control, even when it allows for private security as part of the long tail in security arrangements, because private sector participation must be licensed, and its ultimate control is still with the government.

We are focusing on internal security in this write-up.

Security is central to governance

Security is so central to governance; that is why every constitution calls for the government to protect the lives and property of its citizens. This fundamental role of government cannot be diminished. The responsibility is solely thrust on the government, and how it chooses to effectively deliver on it is the crux of the matter.

Security is also key to economic development; it is only in a secure environment that investments can be attracted or can thrive. No one can plan to invest here security is not guaranteed. Even localised activity like farming will also not thrive here there is no security.

We have seen this happen to Nigeria n the last several years. Particularly in the middle belt region, the food basket of the country. Where the activities and ties of herdsmen are most prominent.

The middle belt is now so insecure, farming is now severely restricted. Everything is affected; when there is a threat to security, even simple travels round Nigeria are no longer taken for granted.

I remember many years ago when I did my National Youth Service in Jos Plateau State; many times I travelled alone, driving myself from Jos to Benin City or Lagos. The roads were not so good, but the journey was not considered risky in the sense that you might be attacked by herdsmen or kidnappers. There were the occasional stories of armed robberies on some highways, not much on this side of the country at the time. The north was one of the relatively safe places to travel. I remember sometimes stopping on the wayside when I got tired of driving, rolling down my vehicle door windows, and taking a nap for 30 to 45 minutes …. These were even lonely roads in those days.

If you ever travel on Keffi-Kafanchan-Koiroads, you will go through the winding roads, seeing occasional heavy-duty vehicles 20/30 minutes apart. Today, even traveling to Benin City from Lagos is now considered risky. I have not travelled by road to Benin City in more than 5 years. This illustrates the considerable effect this has on commerce and free movement round the country. Security concerns have greatly reduced intercity traveling in Nigeria; that was not a consideration a few years ago.

Unless governments put in efforts to secure the country, the economy and everything else will continue to suffer.

The problem with our security is not necessarily the lack of investment by governments. Security, external and internal, has received some of the highest allocations of our budget every year in the last several years.

It has more to do with the security architecture and the centralisation of our internal security that has paralysed the entire system. The same affliction with our over-centralised governance.

Everyone knows security is local, yet we have insisted on centralising our security architecture. Those who argue that letting the Nigeria Police remain as the only proper internal security to be accommodated in the country are people who pretend to be sleeping. You cannot wake up anyone pretending to be asleep. In any frank discussion with the Inspector General of the Nigeria police, he will agree with the average Nigerian that the Nigeria police are far less effective today than 20 years ago. The police are overstretched, underpaid and unmotivated. Yet, police have more vehicles for patrol today than 20 years ago. They have better technology today and more men in uniform, though compared to the population today, vastly inadequate. What this means is the need to reorganise our overall internal security architecture and make our internal security a layered one.

A layered, decentralised security arrangement is what is needed

There is a reason hy security arrangements in a country like the US have several layers. The Federal Police, being he Federal Bureau of Investigation (The FBI ),

State Police in every state, County police or local police, sheriff and sheriff deputies, and then the city police in each state. You even have police in large communities separate from the city police; even universities have university police. This layered approach makes policing effective and efficient. Each layer is closest to its area of control and will therefore be more responsive and effective. The hierarchy is established. A local matter or security threat remains with the first layer where it takes place; where there is a need to call for support, the next level layer gets involved. Once it crosses state lines or a federal offence is involved, the FBI automatically takes charge, working with the local community police is the first point of contact. There is never competition over who is in charge; nor is there a struggle to be in charge; the lines are well established, and everyone does their bit.

The Nigeria internal security situation is calling for this same decentralised approach with a layered network to have effective policing. Those who are living in the past, who claim that having state police, for instance, will translate to anarchy because some crazy state governor might hijack the state police for political purposes, are wrong-headed and taking it too far; no governor can take the laws into his hands without attracting the intervention of the federal government and the other 35 states. Just like it is not also possible for any local government chairman to misuse the police under its control without bringing the might of the state over it. Instead of crowding the arguments that it cannot be done, we should focus on how it can be done and done quickly.

Our internal security situation is getting out of hand. I read somewhere the other day that we have our military in 30 of our 36 states, handling internal security matters that should strictly be handled by the police. This is sufficient proof that the Nigerian police can no longer handle our internal security.

Our military is responsible for handling external threats. If these military personnel, occupied with internal security duties, were to be freed up to focus on external threats like what we have with Boko Haram and ISWA, we would get better results. In some places in the North, we now have ragtag local vigilante groups taking on this threat because of insufficient military presence. Getting the military back to their primary duty and refocusing our police on their internal policing duties is urgent.

The first order of things will be to put in place robust legislative guidelines to completely revamp and restructure our internal policing architecture with proper delineation of areas of control.

I have suggested here that we will need at least 4 layers of internal security to start with…The federal police – that is, the Nigeria police, state police, local government police and community police.

These layers will be needed to properly cover all areas that need policing. The longer tail of the security arrangement can include private security. This is already developing on its own. There are residential estates in many major cities in Nigeria with their own security arrangements, where they are very effective.

Funding as an obstacle?

Critics will jump on the funding that will be required for the expanded architecture as the major obstacle. I think the current budgets are unfocused and thrown around, particularly in the States, where huge security allocations are made to state governors with no accountability … Particularly money spent to buy vehicles and equipment for the Nigeria Police, that is within the remit of the Federal Government, can be better focused and spent more meaningfully by directing them to State and Local Government Police.

Many have said that these extraordinary budget spends have more to do with the penchant for contracts than real support for the Nigeria Police. Every governor buys these vehicles without input from the Nigeria police; they are dumped on them by the contractor, and the governor makes a show of it in some public field, and videos are passed around as an investment in our security. We are approaching a situation where some of these vehicles end up in the wrong places because accounting for them was not required.

Some police formations also see it as a burden; you dump vehicles on them with no provision for fuelling and maintenance. There are police stations littered with vehicles that are unserviceable; sometimes, there is no fuel in them to respond to emergencies.

Police trust funds as proper channels for funding

Some states are already putting proper funding in place, as in the creation of police trust funds. Lagos State stands out in this regard. As the first state to start this, with strong governance, that has seen professionals and other outstanding individuals put on their boards. This has enhanced trust and has given confidence to those who contribute to the fund.

The results are also there; Lagos State is relatively the most secure state in the Federation today.

So, a proper rearrangement of the various layers and a more focused collective budget, federal and the states, with security trust funds created for every state, and the community coming together to fund their own local police, with some assistance from governments, will get all the layers started, and funding will grow and budgets will be used more efficiently.

The Nigeria Police post will not be required where a local government police post is created or where a community police post is present. The nearness of local police in these communities will be more effective, and responses to emergencies will be swift.

The members of the State Police, local government police, and community police will all come from the community, who will know their environment and will be familiar with local peculiarities.

This will all contribute to its effectiveness and efficiency.

If we really want to improve our internal security, we must do the needful with our policing. Restructuring our security architecture and layering our policing is the first step.

Victor Ogiemwonyi is a retired investment banker and writes from Ikoyi, Lagos, Nigeria.