Mr. Fatai Owoseni retired from the Nigeria Police Force having served as the Commissioner of Police in charge of Lagos and Benue States, among other postings. He currently serves as the Executive Secretary Oyo State Security Trust Fund and Special Adviser to the governor on Security. In this interview with Taiwo Adisa, he speaks about recent stampedes in Ibadan and parts of the country, and the bid to institute state police in Nigeria, adding that government must provide adequate incentives to ensure the police work for the people. Excerpts:
Why are we having so many stampedes this festive period?
I won’t agree with you that we are having so much stampedes at this period. Stampede is not peculiar to festive period. There have been stampede where there were no festive periods. You remember the recruitment saga in Abuja and some other ones. And of course, if you say so much, it is only one stampede that was recorded in Oyo State, the one that happened at Islamic High School. It can be linked to our nature. Some people may challenge me on this, but Nigeria has changed and we have lost our value system. Nigeria wasn’t like this and it was because of that nature that when we had the first coming of General Buhari and General Tunde Idiagbon, they introduced the War Against Indiscipline, WAI. I don’t want to generalize to say that we are not orderly enough because when we go out of this country, we maintain the orderliness but it seems as if we are making it look like it is in our culture not to be orderly.
Sometimes, people behave as if they are not human beings. The culture of rushing for everything can be tied to the cankerworm of corruption and greed. They will say a particular place can accommodate 100, people will sell tickets for more than 100 persons in order to steal the money. If you now take it back to the stampede that was recorded in Ibadan, you can see that people have said, oh, it is because of the hardship and poverty we are going through. But look at the people that are being accused of corruption. Even in the midst of plenty, it is as if we behave like animals. It is like madness; for someone that is put in a position of authority, with all the government paraphernalia, will still go and steal billions. People at the age of over 60 years old are still acquiring wealth under the guise that they are acquiring for their children as inheritance when some of their children will eventually loot these properties.
Back to what Queen Naomi did. Pastor Mathew Ashimolowo came to this same Ibadan and the audience for his own programme was even more than what they had at Islamic High School, but Ashimolowo wrote to the state government three months before the event to get support and the letter was endorsed to all the security agencies in the state including OYRTMA. They were all co-opted as well as Ashimolowo’s Liaison organisers to work together and it went without incident.
Now that we are having such incidents repeatedly, who will bell the cat, the government or non-state actors? The IGP just issued an order stopping distribution of palliatives, will that help?
I can’t and would not be able to put it on the table of one person. It has to be inclusiveness. If the IG had banned distribution of palliatives, how are we sure some people are not opening their law books to challenge him on the rights he has to make such orders? How are you sure some people will not misinterpret it to say ‘don’t mind that IGP, it’s because he is in affluence and his own children are not suffering? And I will give you one example. About two years ago when the Oyo State governor said we should clear up Sabo in Ibadan, we had a dialogue with people that were there – the beggars and destitute. This state even built a shelter for them in Akinyele with medical facilities, including the points to pray and it put the Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Inclusion in charge to be cooking for them. So, people came about to say ‘oh, we used to go and donate food to them. So, you want us to drive to Akinyele’. So, what we need to say is that if anybody wants to do things involving the crowd, he should plan ahead. If it is ten persons you have in mind, organise for hundred persons because of the greed of some persons.
Let me give another example: People are doing night vigils at this period. And if you are going to do that as a church, the location of your church even if there is a medical emergency, no health worker can reach the place because of its remoteness. Security is important. You should factor security into the plans. When people leave the place in the morning, is it accessible for health? Just like Karl Marx said “religion is the opium of the people.” Even if they tell some people that where they are going to, the snake will bite them there, they will say they are going to seek salvation.
There is an attempt at the federal level to approve the operation of state police, will state police help and is the Amotekun initiative working in the South-West too?
Everyone has his personal opinion and I know most of our governors want State Police. The people also want it. But is it the solution to our problem? No. It is not about who controls the Police but what you provide for the Police. How many policemen or law enforcement agencies do we have to the people? When you have even enough policemen, do you have the tools and wherewithal for them to work? In a situation where nobody cares about whether a Police station has a patrol vehicle, even if they have at all, the rickety ones? In this state, the governor has been wonderful, coming to the aid of the Police. But the challenges are enormous. Let’s take the Bodija Housing Police Divisional Headquarters that covers the whole of Bodija, up to Mokola. Is one patrol vehicle enough? We will also be quick to say that they don’t know how to handle it. If you are using just one patrol vehicle, will it last more than one year? Plus, the fact that they change their drivers. And if they do patrol, you can imagine the number of calls that will be put through to the headquarters at the same time. How do they divide themselves? Even when they now get to the station that they have come to complain, who provides for the register that they use in taking notes? Who provides for a poor constable or Corporal that is transferred from Jigawa State to Ibadan with no family member? Where does he put his head? He cannot afford rent. The only choice for him is to sleep inside and exhibit vehicle. Yes, they are clamoring for state police but are they going to address those basic things. Are we asking for state police just for sheer control of status?
I’ve heard all the narratives that are being put, yes, if that is what we desire, let them go ahead. They will tell you that the United States has state police. It is not the state police they have in the United States. If you try to do research, the US will tell you that they have well over 2,000 law enforcement agencies. They are not state police. If you take University of Ibadan for example, those people that are the security there, if its in the United States, they have captured them as part of the police apparatus and they are well integrated. That is what we keep on telling people. If you are talking about proper policing, taking policing to the grassroots, apart from having Amotekun now, we talk of how to integrate the vigilantes in different structures. The landlords’ association that have formed a vigilante group, you must integrate them because there must be inter-connectivity. You must recognise them as the integral part of the system of the state.
I can tell you that Amotekun is filling the gap, but have we properly filled the gap? Can it be better? Yes, it can. Even from the non-state actors, I used to tell people when the governor approved that we should change our structure to integrated security architecture, that is the non-state actors and the state actors having a handshake. It has been difficult sometimes to unite. Call it state police, if you like, call it Ibadan Police. It is just all about the wherewithal and the intention. Are we doing it so that I can just call the Commissioner of Police to say ‘go and slap the leader of the other party’. That is what some of them think that state police are used for. I have worn the shoes and know where it pinches. And I used to tell people that if you have a good system, when a rule of law takes place, it is not who controls the police. It is the people that controls the Police.
Some of us have said that the middle line is this – you have the apparatus that should make the Police independent of any leader, which is the Police Council. Why have we not made the Police Council to work? That’s the only Council that has been the most redundant despite the fact that it was created by the constitution. Why did they do it like that? It is dated back to 1957 – Minority Commission. Then, the Minorities agitated to say that we have the police dominated by the majority. That was why the commission was set up. And it was that commission that gave birth to the Police Council and Police Service Commission to handle the appointments, promotions, discipline and all that. That is one of the areas the governors should look at. Whoever is the Chairman, is the person a card-carrying member of a party? Are you using them for political purposes? All the governors are members and the president is the Chairman. That is why we don’t say President Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces and the Police. It is Commander in Chief of Armed Forces because they want police to be insulated from political control. They call the president the Chairman of the Police Council. The 1957 report, when it was amplified, it was said that it is not possible that we will have a president and all the governors coming from the same political party. It is to allow for integration and criticisms for checks and balances, but they have made the Council to be redundant. We are not only a federal system that has a federal police system. It is about discipline, the culture of the people. But they get some of us that have worn the shoes to come and share our personal experiences. I had a nasty experience, which I won’t really delve into now. But I made sure that I allowed my conscience to prevail.
So you believe that without scooping the rot on the surface, we may not get the right answer from the quest for state police?
If we don’t try it, we won’t really know the advantages it has for us. In the First Republic, we had native authority, we had local government police. What did they do? In this Western Region, oppositions were going to put dead bodies in front of the house of their opponents because they had the control of the Police. So, you must first think of how did we get there? We must go back to see how we can address the matter. In fact, things are worse now because the maturity is not there. You have a system where it is just a platform to gain political office. You must be able to address the problem of poverty and corruption. You must be able to address the cost of even getting to political office. If before you become a Councillor or Senator, you are going to spend that much, you are going to steal money to become a governor or as a senator, what follows is that once you get that power, you want to use the instrument of a state to recover your money.
We are not building institutions. Any country that doesn’t build institutions is doomed. This is because the people in power will use the State apparatus to oppress their opponents. You see most of our people that have positions, if you go to any ceremony today in this county, not only in the South-West, the number of mobile policemen and counter-terrorism policemen, General-duty Policemen, Civil Defence and, in some cases, military that carry bags to follow V.I.Ps are more than the ones we are deploying on the streets. We have bastardized the uniform. Meanwhile, when you call the Police Station that robbery is taking place somewhere, they will tell you they don’t have guns; they don’t have vehicles to the extent that the loyalty of an average policeman is now to the individuals because of the meagre salary they are being paid.
Whoever that they are following is giving them N100,000 every month, which is above their salary from the government. So, when you want to use them for the proper work to be done, they will go and lobby. Some of them are even ready to resign and drop their uniforms. Our big men are encouraging that but is that the way the system should be? A country where someone has served for 35 years; all his productive years in the system, you were giving him N20,000 or 30,000 as monthly pension. I retired as Commissioner of Police with N70,000 per month and these are people that when you even say let us quantify the job you do as Commissioners of Police, it is far more than they are paid.
As Commissioner of Police in Lagos State, my staff strength was close to 5,000, policing millions of people. So, you leave that kind of job and your monthly pension is N70,000. I am not even talking for myself now. You have superintendents, Chief Superintendent, Inspectors and all of that with N20,000 as pension. It was the grace of God that made some of us not to be corrupt.
I am not talking about the Police alone, even the civil servants face the same challenge. The country must look into how people can be compensated while in service. If you touch the professional bodies including NMA, NBA and others, even the NUJ, they will use the pen to threaten the government but the Police don’t have any voice. They will say policemen are illiterates, but I will say there is no institution in this country that has the number of graduates as the police.
They talk of the US; it is because the institutions are developed. When loyalists of former President Trump invaded the Capitol over election outcome, people were saying the National Guard should be deployed; but the Military said No, that it had not degenerated to that level.
We are not only a federal system that has a federal police system. It is about discipline, the culture of the people. But they get some of us that have worn the shoes to come and share our personal experiences. I had a nasty experience, which I won’t really delve into now. But I made sure that I allowed my conscience to prevail. I retained my loyalty to the people whose taxes were collected to pay my salary.
You are the Executive Secretary, Oyo State Security Trust and the Special Adviser to Oyo State Governor on Security. The state has gone through ups and downs since the beginning of the year, how would you describe the state of security right now?
I would say the situation is almost perfect, but, in security, we don’t say the situation is 100 per cent perfect because it is fluid and that is why we always say ‘relatively calm’ and ‘relatively peaceful’. For example, this year, we started with a disaster, the Bodija explosion on January 16th. Now, two weeks before the end of the year, we had the stampede deaths in Bashorun. Everybody will now say it is because they don’t manage things very well. And in security, if by, say, the 31st of December, by 11 p.m., no crime is recorded. If when it is just a minute to January 1st, something bad happens, it will rubbish everything. It won’t be 99 minus one but 99 multiplied by zero. That’s how it is in the security.
I can say that, in Oyo State, God has been helping us and I want to thank the governor too for providing the wherewithal. The synergy among the security agencies in the state is also commendable. The synergy we have built shows the integrated security system we are using is working. I can still proudly say that Oyo State remains one of the safest states in the South-West and in the country as well.
Everybody would say that when we started in 2019, it was not like this and it was more or less zero. But with the humongous investment on security in terms of provision of vehicles and other things. I would say this is the first time in Oyo state that a governor purchased vehicles for all Police Divisional headquarters and the Area Commands. The fact that huge investment was also done on communication has helped. Prior to 2019, there was no way Police people can communicate with walkie-talkie between Ibadan and Ogbomoso. We now have a new system that covers the nook and cranny of the Oyo State. Not only that, the senior officers can use the walkie-talkie to monitor what their patrol people are doing anywhere, which is very unique. The fact that we are even able to operationalize the three-digit citizen’s enquiry number, 615, is also a plus. Also, there is the Crime Alert App, which is being downloaded on android phone. Look at the fact that we are also trying to stretch a bit to have a Mobile Squadron at Ago Are, while we also have Amotekun, which is like a community policing system set up to provide support. I cherish the idea because the number of policemen keeps reducing every day, especially the rank and file. As a matter of fact, the number of policemen we have is not enough for Ibadan city alone, not to talk of Oyo State. So, we now join Civil Defence, Immigration and the military. They are not enough but Oyo State can boastfully say we have the highest number of Amotekun personnel.
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