The Role Of Police In A Democracy

Ishaq Salihu

Universally it has been accepted that democracy is the only system of governance that, guarantees the freedom of people and the police as an only institution to protect and curtail the citizenry’s excesses. Herein, lies the contradictions. On the one hand democracy allows complete freedom, while the police as an institution police that freedom. What then is the role of police in an emerging democracy such as ours?

The 1999 Nigerian constitution, categorically, provides for the establishment of one police institution for the whole country, while Section 4 of the police Act and Regulation Spells out the role of the police amongst other things, to include; preservation of law and order, detection of crime, arrest, detention and prosecution of offenders, to mention but a few.

With the advent of democracy in the country in May 1999 to date, no organization is much vilified, castigated and lampooned by the citizenry like the Nigerian police. Some of this mudslinging’s nay condemnation might in some cases be considered right. However, a great number stems from the total misunderstanding of the role(s) of the police in a democratic setting like ours. The average Nigerian considers the present democratic dispensation as a licence to do as they please without any hindrance even if it means breaking the law after all in their warped reasoning elections (or is it selection?) is like war the winner takes the spoils /booty of the war. So, if their candidates wins they are above the law or the law is only made to suite their whims and caprices. Nothing I dare say is further from the truth.

A balance ought to be stroke between allowing the freedom of an individual and the enforcement of all the lawful laws of the society. The police are a necessary evil its absence in any given society pushes that society to chaos and anarchy where as too much of police makes for despots and dictatorships to sprout and blossom. In an emerging democracy such as ours there is the need to give the police more than a helping hand, our 29years of military (miss) rule has pauperise the police in virtually every sector ranging from training/re-training, recruitment, provisions of logistic support down to entrenching indiscipline and worst of all imbibing the brutish and inhuman culture of treating fellow citizens in the discharge of their constitutional responsibilities.

The police are expected to be in the vanguard of defence of not only human rights but in defending our nascent democracy. Mistakes no doubt have been made and I dare say will be made in the future .However, the beauty of the learning process is not, not to stumble and fall but to have the courage and the will to stumble and if need be fall and rise again .Nigerians from all walks of life must come to the aid of the police in terms of community participation, prompt and timely information to get at the men of the underworld. After all the Hausa’s have saying ‘kome lalacewar masa ta fi gaban kashin shanu’no matter how bad our police is today, it is ours. We can not afford to throw the child with the bath water, rather, we should evolve a means of strengthening all the democratic institutions like the police, the judiciary , the legislature to mention but a few. This to my mind is the only panacea to building and sustaining a police force of our dream. A force that can use every ounce of its strength in bringing the unjust to justice, a force that can look people in the face and treat them with decency and decorum. A force that will not be used or intimidated, a force that its personnel are well renumerated and a force that has state of the arts equipments and logistics. Such a force is will respect of the citizenry and the admiration of international community.

Already the new acting Inspector General has extended the hand of friendship to the citizenry. Promising it will not be business as usual. His ten point agenda of moving the force forward is a right step in the right direction. What remains to be seen is whether the Nigerian public will rise up and accept the IGPs hand of fellowship and rid our society of crime and criminals.