Suleiman Abba, the new IG

AS he assumes office, Suleiman Abba will need a delicate blend of sustained reforms and innovation, strong leadership, adequate resources and good systems of evaluation to end up successfully as Nigeria’s 17th Inspector-General of Police. The critical challenges before him, following his appointment in acting capacity by President Goodluck Jonathan on August 1, are to oversee a drastic reduction in violent crimes, tame the Boko Haram insurgency and forge a decent relationship between the police and the public.

Abba has reeled out a bus-load of promises in a depressingly familiar context, including pledges to intensify the fight against crime and upgrade the standards of performance of the police force. He also acknowledged that “policing is no more about arresting, investigating and prosecution only.” The responsibility of the police in a democracy, he says, transcends these traditional roles, to include ensuring a stable democracy, a polity conducive to good governance; creating an enabling environment for economic development; and providing acceptable basic service delivery for the people of our country.

Based on this broad understanding, the new IG said he would ensure a truly intelligence-led police; integrate law enforcement and crime prevention initiatives; make police service delivery less inconvenient to the people; make sure resources are diligently managed and equitably distributed among basic priorities and make communities an integral component of our policing approach. He will need a lot of guts to make a remarkable difference.

In the real sense, Abba has not said anything new. All the IGs before him since 1999 had similarly pledged to give Nigeria a laudable force, but failed the leadership challenge. Today, contrary to what Abba would want us to believe, the Human Rights Watch 2013 report says Nigeria’s police force continues to be implicated in frequent human rights violations, including extrajudicial killings, torture, arbitrary arrests, and extortion-related abuses. Despite promising public statements by the new IG, corruption in the police force remains a serious problem. The police routinely solicit bribes from victims to investigate crimes and from suspects to drop investigations. Senior police officials embezzle or mismanage police funds, often demanding “returns” from money that their subordinates extort from the public.

An Amnesty International report of the same year alleged that unlawfulkillings were carried out by the police across Nigeria. In March 2012, the Chairman of the National Human Rights Commission Governing Council, Chidi Odinkalu, said an estimated 2,500 detainees were summarily killed by the police every year. To many Nigerians, the Nigeria Police has gained notoriety more as a brutal enforcement apparatus of the political party in power than as “a leading national, professional, and efficient law enforcement organisation” that Abba thinks it is. And this poses a serious challenge.

For his reforms to be effective, he must be ready to demonstrate good leadership. The two most dangerous aspects of police leadership in Nigeria are lack of personal integrity and the misplaced sense of loyalty to the President, rather than to the Nigerian state. It is argued that police are a central element of a democratic society. Indeed, one element in defining such a society is a police force that is subject to the rule of law, rather than the wishes of a powerful leader or party; one that can intervene in the life of citizens only under limited and carefully controlled circumstances and is publicly accountable. That explains why it takes professionalism, competence, integrity and the ability to motivate staff to be an effective IG. Abba will definitely face resistance from a system mired in impunity by high public and private office holders, corruption and dwindling resources; but by leading with sterling innovations, he can make the organisation better.

Abba is assuming office at a time of widespread insecurity. The North-East region has literally been overrun by Boko Haram jihadists. The rest of the North has not been spared either, with Kano, Kaduna, and Plateau states feeling the onslaught of the Islamic extremists, who have upped the game with female-child suicide bombers. Tackling the rampaging insurgents will demand fresh methods. The Tactical Operation Points he unveiled last Wednesday should be efficiently monitored to prevent them from turning to extortion points. He must use his experience and the best practices from other climes to reform our force.

As IG, he must, once and for all, deal with the negative image of the police. Many Nigerian police officers look decrepit and untidy. This must change. In a workable system, all officers must be properly clothed to inspire confidence in themselves and the populace. The current fiasco, in which the police wear different uniforms, should be abolished in place of standardised gear for all officers. All over the world, the police are respected by the way they dress.

But Abba’s tenure will ultimately be judged by how he handles endemic corruption in the police. In Nigeria’s thoroughly corrupt system, true justice is a chimera. In 2010, HRW remarked that widespread corruption in the Nigeria Police Force was fuelling abuses against ordinary citizens and severely undermining the rule of law in Nigeria. As Corinne Dufka, senior West Africa researcher at HRW, puts it, “Good policing is the bedrock for the rule of law and public safety. The long-term failure of the Nigerian authorities to address police bribery, extortion, and wholesale embezzlement threatens the basic rights of all Nigerians.”

It will be awful if Abba also trudges on in self-denial as his uninspiring predecessors did. He should take immediate steps to improve budgetary transparency in the police force and to investigate and bring to justice, police officers at all levels implicated in corrupt practices and extrajudicial killings.