The Role Of The Police Under The Electoral Act.
The Nigeria Police Force is a creature of the 1999 Constitution and the Police Act. Section 214 (1) of the 1999 Constitution provides that ‘ There shall be a police force for Nigeria, which shall be known as the Nigeria Police Force, and subject to the provisions of this section no other police force shall be established for the Federation or any part thereof.
This unfortunate provision has unwittingly been the source of the problems relating to law enforcement in Nigeria.
By designating against all known principles of federalism, a federal agency as the sole Police Force for the Centre and 36 States, the Constitution had unbeknownst to it created a recipe for anarchy and incompetence.
The present Police Force is understaffed and ultra-sensitive to the principles of Federal Character that it usually jettisons merit for geographical representation.
Again, Nigeria being a heavily populated country with diverse cultures, usually suspicious of one another underscores the need for individual States to have their own Police Force, we shall return to this issue in due course.
In an effort to remedy the glaring lacuna created by the constitutional insistence on ‘one police force’ the Federal Government has created several pseudo police forces with independent powers to track-down, investigate and prosecute crimes and criminals, in short, to exercise the same Inter-State Police Powers that the Constitution has expressly prohibited any other organisation Federal or State from exercising.
They include but are not limited to the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps[1] Economic and Financial Crimes Commission[2], Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Offences Commission[3], Nigerian Customs Service[4], Immigration Service[5] etc.
Some of the States recognising the inadequacies of the Federal Police Force have unsuccessfully tried to legislate thereon by creating in name vigilante organisations and traffic wardens but ostensibly to exercise law enforcement duties.
The truth is that all the aforementioned organisations are in clear breach of section 214 of the 1999 Constitution, particularly the Nigerian Civil Defence Corp, which by section 3 of the amended Act now has more powers than the Nigerian Police Force itself.
There are other severe factors equally militating against the efficiency of the law enforcement agencies, (constitutional or otherwise), they range from the treatment of suspects while awaiting trial and especially that grey period between apprehension and arraignment before a court.
Documented abuses during this critical period include who or where the suspect is kept before the grant of bail or if he is refused same, in other words who has the custody of the accused during this period, deliberate deprivation of counsel, abuse or breach of the suspect’s right to remain silent, denial of police bail especially in simple matters leading to frequent breaches of the constitutional[6] and statutory provisions[7] which specify maximum periods in respect of which such suspect can be detained without trial, torture and other acts calculated to extract confessional statement from suspect, extra judicial conduct including homicide etc.
These abuses are nauseatingly rampant in the system.
It is without doubt that the political process leading to democratic governance has been misconstrued by a majority of Nigerians as an opportunity to better ones livelihood.
Before our very eyes chronic paupers and hitherto never do wells have entered the political process and emerged millionaires and in some cases billionaires.
They have taken up high chieftaincy titles, changed limousines, built mansions and rubbed shoulders with the high and mighty.
Consequently, politics is seen as the gateway to paradise on earth.
The stakes are high and there is much to play for. On the down side, this lifestyle built on the looting of taxpayer’s funds has turned the quest for elective office into a very dangerous business.
Politics today is the cause of a great number of deaths in Nigeria through the acts of violence, thuggery, political assassinations and crimes that are linked with the quest for power.
In the course of all this, many criminal offences are committed.
Some of the offences have not even been captured by prevailing legislation.
Suffice to say that the criminal activities linked to politics are sufficiently alarming such as to attract the attention of the same politicians that have climbed to the top of the political ladder.
In this regard they have tried to half-heartedly legislate and provide penalty for these offences.
They have in the process resisted the establishment of an Electoral Offences Commission which would have focussed attention on crimes committed in the course of electoral process.
They are hoping that it will be business as usual since it would be their ‘friend’ the Police that will be in charge of crime control during the election.
Indeed, politicians are happy with existing police arrangements for the impending elections, which include but are not limited to, (a) not bearing arms at polling stations or collating centres, (b) not to arrest anybody committing an offence within the precincts of a polling station but to use preventive measures, (c) have in most cases only one policemen at polling stations.
Thus, in the light of this arrangement, thugs, ballot box snatchers, armed robbers, kidnappers, assassins, confusionists, arsonists, will have a field day during the elections.
A policeman at the scene of the commission of any of these crimes does not require a warrant to arrest the offender.
There has been a raging debate as to the efficacy of the police at polling areas.
That the number of policemen at such places is grossly insufficient and that state of affairs appears to be an open invitation for those who want to pervert the electoral process to proceed so to do.
The fact that they are unarmed is also laughable. It seems that by acceding to such a situation, the Police high command is needlessly putting the lives of their men at risk.
Indeed, if properly trained, men of the police ought to be heavily armed-one man riot squad invariably so as to be able to defend their lives and guarantee the safety of defenceless voters.
If the Police are unwilling to take full control of polling areas then the people must fill the void. Nigerians are tired of being used as cannon fodder for the ambitions of politicians.
On this occasion, the Police should not be surprised when the People take matters in their own hands and defend their mandate.
Police must therefore appreciate the dichotomy in the range of electoral offences.
The first group are those under the Electoral Act listed above, those are to be prosecuted by INEC and counsel instructed by them (invariably members of the NBA) and offences under the regular day to day statutes such as the Criminal Code, Penal Code etc which constitute the 2nd group.
For those in the 2nd group, their powers of arrest, search and investigation (subject to constitutional constraints) are not inhibited by any law in this country.
It will therefore be a gross dereliction of duty on the part of a policeman who sees any offence being committed in his presence (whether they are offences in the Electoral Act or offences in other criminal legislations).
There can be no justification for tardiness or non performance. This is because the State has delegated its police powers vis a vis the prevention and control of electoral crimes to the police.
The role of the police in the prevention of election crimes is quite simple, to maintain law and order.
Nigeria is locked in a complicated debate of whether there should be State and Community police agencies.
There is need to subscribe to that school of thought because if the Federal Police is to resume its efficacy, its policing jurisdiction must conform to the Federal Constitution.
At the moment, their intervention in State’s policing is an aberration, which unfortunately impinges on the efficiency and reputation.
It is a matter that the Police high command should take up with the authorities that be.
