AN ADDRESS DELIVERED BY CHIEF KENNY
MARTINS AT THE POLA NATIONAL DIALOGUE SERIES ON SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2020.
PROTOCOLS:
His Excellency, Otunba Gbenga Daniel,
my friend and brother, and the Chief Host of today’s event, our revered
panellists and all those who have played one part or the other to make today’s
event a reality, I give you my sincere compliments.
INTRODUCTION:
CIVIL
UNREST AND NATIONAL DEMOCRATIC ADVANCEMENT
This is
our 21st year in continuous democratic Government as a Nation. This
4th Republic as it is fondly called may well continue to be the
republic that will eventually make us a developed democracy in years to come. I
give kudos to all those who have contributed one way or another in sustaining
this nascent democracy which many pundits did not believe will succeed.
To achieve a sustainable democracy, you need to
build the democratic Institutions, without which there will not be an authentic
democracy, but democracy only in name. Some of these institutions include;
1.
An independent Parliament
2.
An independent Judiciary
3.
An independent and vibrant Press
4.
An assemblage of vibrant Civil
Society organizations.
5.
A loyal Armed Forces to defend the
frontiers of the state, and
6.
A law abiding Police Force.
Civil protests in themselves are the means by which
the citizens exercise their rights to freedom of speech and use that to show
the areas where improvements in governance are required or to draw the
attention of Government to the unacceptable actions of some of its personnel, agencies
and policies.
Democracy was defined by Abraham Lincoln as a
government of the people, by the people and for the people. That being the
case, every citizen of the country has a share in sustaining the democracy. The
best way to sustain and promote democracy is by obeying the laws of the Land on
any relevant subject.
If you as members of the public desire to carry out
a protest the constitution and the other laws allow you to do so, but the same
laws prescribe the way and manner you should exercise your rights of free
speech and public assembly in such a manner that your exercise of your own
right will not adversely affect the other citizens of the country in the
exercise of their own rights of freedom of movement and rights to property. It
is when civil protests go out of the control of the organisers that it gives
rise to civil unrest.
Civil
unrest leads to a no win situation because the Law Enforcement Agents,
especially the Police, are bound by law to contain the incidents of civil
unrests and may take actions to prevent the escalation of the unrest which the
protesters may deem to be an excessive use of force. In the end, the narrative
of the force that the Police or the Army had used to restore law and order then
becloud the original narrative of the Intention of those who organised the
protests, in the first place.
THE
CHALLENGES OF THE NIGERIA POLICE REFORM
The Police can be defined as a group
of persons legally empowered by a Political Authority to enforce the laws and
ensure the protection of lives and property of the Citizens within their area
of jurisdiction.
The idea of a professional Police
Force was first pursued by Sir Robert Peel when he became the UK Home Secretary
in 1822. In 1829 the Peel`s Metropolitan Police Force was established for the
Greater London area.
The history of the Nigeria Police
Force started in 1879 with the establishment by the British Colonial Authority
of what it called, the Hausa Constabulary, made up of 1,200 men, armed and
trained as a Paramilitary Organisation, to intimidate the locals and force them
to obey the laws of the colonial Administration.
Since then the Nigeria Police Force
has grown in number to a strength of nearly 400,000 officers and men and have
produced exemplary officers who have excelled in their service to the country
and excelled each time they have served abroad in peace keeping Operations for
the United Nations and other Multilateral Organisations.
However, there continues to exist in
their fold some policemen and officers who are still operating with colonial format,
and from time to time portray a negative image of the police to the wider
society in Nigeria.
THE
PROBLEM OF SARS
Because of
the issues relating to the recent protests to #ENDSARS we cannot hold a
discussion of this magnitude without making reference to the police unit called
SARS.
SARS means
Special Anti-Robbery Squad. It was a unit in the Lagos state police command,
formed to combat the rising cases of armed robbery in Lagos state. The
immediate cause was the killing of Col. Rindam of the Nigerian Army at a checkpoint
in Lagos, in September 1992 allegedly by three Police officers. His colleagues
in the Army thereafter chased after any Police personnel they could find, and
as such, the Police Operations in Lagos State nearly ground to a halt. The void
was quickly exploited by the notorious Mr Shina Rambo and other violent armed
robbers, and they callously unleashed mayhem on the Lagos residents to the
extent that nobody felt safe anywhere in Lagos State.
Following
the reconciliation of the Police and the Army, the new Commissioner of Police, Mr
James Danbaba requested permission from the Force Headquarters to form a special
squad unit to capture Mr Shina Rambo and take back the streets of Lagos from
the rampaging armed robbers. His request was not only granted but the young Superintendent
of Police, by the name of Mr Simeon Midanda, who had effectively recovered the
streets of Benin City and Edo State in general, from the armed robbers, was
posted out of Edo state to head the Special Anti-Robbery Squad in Lagos State. As a result of the
successes recorded by the SARS in Lagos, the Federal SARS was formed to operate
in the whole country.
In later
years, precisely in 2008, that same Mr Simeon Midanda, then a Deputy
Commissioner of Police was sent by the Police High Command at the instance of
the Vice President, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan to meet with me and to investigate
the case of a wicked plot by my adversaries to assassinate me and frustrate my
work at that time at the Police Equipment Foundation to reposition the Nigeria
Police Force with donations of operational vehicles, houses and insurance
covers for those who lost their lives on active duties.
According
to Mr James Duddridge, the British Minister for African Affairs on the Foreign,
Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), SARS was being trained and equipped
by the Government of the United Kingdom from 2016 to March 2020.
Since the
United Kingdom Police does not have a SARS Department, it is not rocket science
to assume that the said training were being conducted by the United kingdom Police
Special Elite Operations Force, by the name of London SWAT, the Metropolitan
Police Special Firearms Unit. This is perhaps the reason the hasty decision of
the Police Authorities to Officially Disband SARS at the request of the
protesters and set up SWAT did not go down well with the protesters because
they believed rightly or wrongly, that SARS had just been renamed, SWAT.
THE #ENDSARS
PROTESTS
Even
though SARS was tagged in the protest, in my own opinion, the protest was
against the entire Nigeria Police Force and other Security Agencies who
sometimes look down on the Civilian population and see them as sources of money
making. This view is reinforced because, if the protesters were only protesting
against SARS, then the protesters would have disbanded when both the Inspector General
of Police and the President and Commander in Chief announced that SARS had been
disbanded. Rather than go back to their homes, the protesters then reeled out a
number of new demands including the sacking of the Inspector General of Police
and other demands that are of a political nature.
It is
therefore not surprising that some people like the Governor of Kogi State, Mr
Yahaya Bello have expressed the view that the protests were politically motivated.
As we speak, there are new reports that there is a crackdown on the leaders of
the end SARS protests and the Bank Accounts of some of their sponsors have been
frozen.
However,
whatever their motivation was, the #ENDSARS movement during the eleven days
that they carried out their protests around the country, displayed a rare
courage to speak frankly to those in positions of authority and urged them to
use their power for a rapid development of the country rather than for self-aggrandizement
and enrichment.
There is
however no justification for the wanton destruction of both public and private
properties that occurred at the later state of the protests. The protest also
helped to reveal the not so excellent decision of their Excellences, the state
Governors of some of the States that hoarded Covid-19 palliatives in warehouses
for no justified reasons, while their constituents were left in hunger. We saw
also those who broke into warehouses and drove away tractors, tricycles and
motorcycles to their homes as if to say that they were driving their point home
to the Government. Arson and brigandage, however, have no place in a modern
democracy.
I
commiserate with all those who lost their loved ones as a result of the
protests as well as others who suffered bullet wounds and other injuries during
the protests.
According
to the Inspector General of Police, 22 police officers also lost their lives
during the protests. I commiserate with the Police High Command and the
families of the fallen patriots and also with those policemen that were injured
in the line of duty trying to keep peace around the country. We now know that
some soldiers were wounded and others lost their lives during the protests. I
commiserate with them and their families as well as the Chief of Army Staff.
I cannot
help but to remember the faces of the wives and young children of the fallen police
officers as the then Deputy Inspector General of Police Mr Ogbonnaya Onovo and
myself distributed the sum of N200,000.00 every month to the family of each of
the fallen active duty police officers who died during the previous month, at
the Force Headquarters, Abuja, proceeds of the Insurance cover made for the
Police Force by the Police Equipment Foundation, to help the deceased families
to have some food to eat before the processing of the entitlement of their
departed bread winners, which is notoriously slow to process.
It was
always a sober moment for me to see the then DIG Onovo holding back tears, and
the little innocent children of the deceased police officers who did not know
what the ceremonies were about, as they played with their peers and chatted
with their mothers.
NEED FOR
THE REFORM OF THE NIGERIA POLICE FORCE
Firstly, I
will start by commending the President and the two branches of the National
Assembly for the enactment of two very important Legislations, namely; the
Nigeria Police Trust Fund (Establishment) Act 2019 and the Police Act, 2020 to
address several aspects of the Police Reforms.
The
Police Act contains so many modern provisions such as;
1) Section 32(2) of the
Act prohibits the Police from arresting anyone based on a civil wrong or breach
of contract.
2) Section 36 of the Act
prohibits the arrest of any person in place of a suspect.
3) Section 35(2)(a, b and
c) of the Act makes it mandatory on the police officer or any other person
authorized to effect an arrest to inform the suspect of his rights to:
i. Remain silent or avoid
answering any question until after consultation with a legal practitioner or
any other person of his own choice.
ii. Consult a legal
practitioner of his own choice before making, endorsing or writing any
statement or answering any question put to him after the arrest.
iii. Free legal
representation by the Legal Aid Council of Nigeria or other organizations where
applicable.
4) Section 35(3) of the
Act also makes it mandatory on the Police to notify the next of kin or
relative(s) of the suspect immediately after the arrest of the suspect.
5) Section 37 provides
that a suspect shall be accorded humane treatment. And a suspect shall not be
subjected to torture, cruelty, inhumane or degrading treatment.
6) Section 60(1) provides
that the statement of a suspect can be taken only when he wishes to make a
statement.
7) Section 60(2) provides
that the statement, where the suspect wishes to make one, MAY be taken in the
presence of a legal practitioner or any other person or organization of his own
choice, and
8) Section 64(1) provides
that where a suspect is arrested and detained for more than 24 hours, if the
offence he was arrested for is not a capital offence, his lawyer or relatives
can notify any court that has jurisdiction to try the matter about his arrest.
Section
4 of the Police Trust Fund Act 2020 provides for how additional funds will be
made available to the police from the Federal Government Revenue Account, levy
on company profits, contributions from State and Local Governments as well as
appropriations by the National Assembly.
Section
5(a to h) of the Police Trust Fund Act provides the objectives for the
enactment of the Police Trust Fund Act which includes training and retraining
of the personnel of the Nigeria Police Force and its auxiliaries inside and
outside of Nigeria, and other objectives.
The first
Police Trust Fund Bill, was in fact sponsored by my colleagues and I in the
Police Equipment Foundation in 2008 with the assistance of Senator David Mark, the
then Chairman of the Police Affairs Committee in the Senate and Engr. Doris
Uboh, the Chairperson of the House of Representatives Committee on Police
Affairs and their Committee Members including Senator Annie Okonkwo and Senator
Paulinus Igwe who was at that time, an Honourable member of the House of Representatives.
My Foundation sponsored the Bill to its 1st and 2nd Reading
in both Houses at our own cost. Any person familiar with law making in Nigeria
will tell you that it is not a mean achievement for a private organization to
sponsor a Bill to the 1st and 2nd Reading.
However,
the orchestrated crises in our Foundation led to our inability to see through
the passage of the Bill. All subsequent governments abandoned it, until the
present government that made improvements on it, pushed the Bill through Parliament
and signed it into law at last.
POLICE
FUNDING
You cannot
talk about effective reforms in the Police Force without linking it with the
effective funding of the Police Force.
Every
Inspector General of Police in the last 20 years of Civilian Administration on
assumption of office had made an order, published publicly, for the closure of
illegal road blocks on the National Highways because they are perceived by the
public as illegal tollgates manned by the police. However, none of such orders
had ever been complied with, principally because the Inspector General of Police
has not provided his officers with sufficient logistics such as fuel dumps,
vehicle repair facilities and office stationeries.
The living
accommodation of the junior officers and the rank and file are nothing to write
home about. Modern police officers should not work in a squalid camp in the
name of Police Barracks. In this era of Information Technology, any Commander
can rally his officers and men from his office desk wherever the officers and
men reside in the area of command.
THE WAY
FORWARD
1. The
police authorities must continue to emphasize to their officers and men, the
need to respect the civilian population and not to look down on people because
they are not clothed in government uniform.
2. There
should be equal opportunities for all young Nigerians with the passion for the
police work to be recruited into the various departments of the police for which
they are qualified.
3. No
amount of legislation will bring enough funds into the coffers of the Nigeria
Police Force, to enable them to give the kind of service that the Metropolitan
Police give to the London residents. This is because the Metropolitan Police have
a staff strength of only 44,000 officers but their 2019/2020 budget is 3.66 Billion pounds
while the Nigeria Police with a staff strength of nearly 400,000 personnel has
in the 2020 proposed National Budget, the highest ever allocation of 447.6
Billion naira. If you put both allocations in the Naira and using N500 as the conversion
rate for the Pound Sterling instead of its N600 value at the parallel market,
you will find out that the 44,000 officers of the Metropolitan Police will have
the sum of One Trillion, Eight Hundred and Thirty Billion Naira to police the Grater
London Area, which is not as big as Lagos State in one year, while the nearly
400,000 officers and men of the Nigeria Police Force will manage the sum of
Four Hundred and Forty Seven Billion Six Hundred Million Naira to Police the
whole of Nigeria with a population of 200,000,000 people, very much larger than
the entire United Kingdom with a total population of only 66, 650, 000 or One
Third of The Nigerian population. It has never happened in the last 20 years
that any Department of the Federal Government of Nigeria, including the Nigeria
Police Force got 100% of their budgetary allocation. The budgets of the
Departments are funded each year according to the availability of funds to the
Federal Government.
NEED FOR
COLLABORATIONS
The
Metropolitan Police in London is not immune to the issues of Government Budget
efficiency, or lack of it. They make sure that their operations are not hampered
by paucity of funds by vigorously partnering with the Private Sector to shore
up their finances, including accepting donations, engaging in profitable investments
and not stifling the efforts of the private sector in the United Kingdom who
have something to contribute to improve the security of their country.
The Nigeria Police cannot have the budget of the Metropolitan
Police at any time soon, but they can partner with the Private Sector to redevelop
some of their prime Real Estates scattered all over the Country and make
regular earnings from the rents and provide their staff with much better
accommodation than are currently on offer at their colonial era Police Barracks.
The Police should stop frustrating the efforts of
well-meaning Nigerians like in the case of the Police Equipment Foundation who
at their own expense raised a whopping sum of over Seven billion, seven hundred
and seventy-four million Naira and spent the money with the full concurrence of
the Police High Command on equipping the police. If not that State Governments
have increased their support to their Local Police commands, the Police would
have been in much more predicament than they are currently, financially
speaking.
In 2006, I invited the former Inspector General of
Police, Mr Musiliu Smith, to join us in the Police Equipment Foundation, but he
informed me that he would have wanted to join, but he had been approached by
the Lagos State Government to do a similar project in Lagos State. He however
requested from me, the Blue Print for the Foundation, which I happily obliged
him with. Today, Lagos State is better for it as they have continued to adhere
to the principles outlined in the said Blue Print with their local adaptation
in the running of their Lagos State Security Trust Fund.
When I heard that as many as 22 Police officers
were killed during the End SARS protest, it became apparent to me that most of
the deceased officers were controlling the crowd in such dangerous and volatile
environments probably without the necessary body armour. This is sad because we
imported in
I know the streets of London like the back of my
hand. Every day you move around in London, not less than 30 closed circuit
television camera will capture your image. If you committed an offence or
defied the traffic regulation, you will be traced and made to pay the fine
prescribed for your action or even get arrested by the police, if you committed
a crime.
However, those closed circuit television cameras
that capture your image are not all owned by the Metropolitan Police. The large
majority of the cameras belong to the Private Sector of the United
Kingdom.
Here in Nigeria, Billions of Naira had been spent
to put central closed circuit television cameras in Abuja and Lagos. However,
no single prosecution has been based on the evidence gathered from those
security equipment to my knowledge.
The police must trust their fellow Nigerian
citizens to assist in crime control. Imagine what will happen in the streets of
Lagos, Abuja and other cities if the Nigerian Police Force will collaborate
with the companies and individuals who already have closed circuit television
cameras in their premises such that they can face one or two cameras on the
streets and collate valuable intelligence for the Police on the movement of
people around their neighbourhood.
Nigerians currently spend over one Trillion Naira
per annum, providing their own private security in their estates, houses, and
places of work, companies and recreation centres, because of the state of
insecurity in the country.
They will gladly spend half of that sum to support
the running of the State Police or Neighbourhood Watch when established, to
take the bulk of the security work off their own budget.
Furthermore, policemen below the rank of Assistant
Superintendent of Police should serve at least in their geo-political zones if
not in their home States because policing is more efficient if it is local, and
done by those who are familiar with the population and the environment.
ADDITIONAL
MOTIVATIONS
There should be adequate provisions for the children of deceased police
officers who died on active duties including a housing subsidy scheme and
scholarships funded by the Federal Government.
DEMOCRACY
REQUIRES GOOD ECONOMY
Another
element that is very important for the sustenance of a vibrant democracy is a
vibrant economy. Democracy is very expensive to run. The only way that the
government can find resources enough to maintain the huge institutions of
democracy is if there is a vibrant economy that has enough good artisan and corporate
job positions for the citizens in and out of Government establishments. In turn,
Government will collect taxes from those who are working citizens and the companies
where they work to manage the country in addition to the other sources of
government revenue.
GOVERNMENT
MUST ALLOW MORE PRIVATE SECTOR PARTICIPATION IN THE ECONOMY
Whenever
the economy is not doing as well as previously, and workers are laid off from
their places of work, there will be more incidence of civil unrests, until the
government is able through its improved economic policies to bring out new programs
that will absorb the working age citizens into gainful employment.
However,
you cannot have a good economy if you do not have a peaceful environment,
industrial level electricity supply and a stable monetary policy. Modern
Governments have broken away from the do it all type of Government. They have now
prioritised the strategic areas like Defence and Foreign Affairs, where only
Government can participate, and have opened the rest of the economy to the
participation of their citizens and Foreign Investors.
OUR
ECONOMY SHOULD BE FURTHER DEREGULATED
Our
economy is currently still over regulated. Take for instance the time and
efforts it currently takes some of the State Governments with the proposal to
establish export processing zones or building Deep Sea Ports in their states to
be able to get the necessary certifications to do so.
If these
infrastructure projects are allowed to function, they will absorb so many
employable youths and reduce unnecessary restiveness in the country. Take for
instance, the Tinapa project in Calabar in which the Government of Cross River
State spent lots of funds to build and upon completion, they were told that the
project will not be commissioned, because there was a legislation that needed
to be amended. That legislation was not amended until the project went into
debts and disuse.
THE
INDEPENDENT POWER PROJECT (IPP)
At the
same period, the Federal Government announced that it was going to do what it
called the Independent Power Project (IPP). Many businessmen, including myself
formed consortia with most experienced international companies and spent
Billions of naira to fulfil the conditions of participating in the bids. At the
end of the day the policy was stopped in preference for the policy of the
Integrated Power Project (IPP) in which the Federal Government then used large
sums of money to repair the old power installations around the country. At that
time, our electricity generating and daily distribution was 3000 mw, today it
is still only 4000 mw.
Nigeria is
currently generating and distributing an average of 4000mw of electricity per
day. Each time the issue of electricity generation and distribution is raised
in the last 20 years; government has always come forward with statistics on their
elaborate installed generation capacities. Let us hope that the current
collaboration between the Germans and the Nigerian authorities will lead to a
marked increase in the power supply, because 4000mw worth of energy on a daily
is too small for a country like Nigeria.
20 years
ago, the Enron Corporation of USA brought some barge mounted electricity
generators to Lagos and offered 14 units with the combined generating capacity
of 1,400mw to Nigeria to improve the generation capacity of the country.
They even
offered to change the fuel input from diesel to natural gas which we have in
abundance, at their own cost. They offered to generate the energy for NEPA and
to be paid according to the energy generated at a price much less than the
prevailing market price. The barges sailed into Lagos in anticipation of the
signing of the power purchase agreement, but it was not signed because there
was a certain legislation that needed to be amended. The legislation was not
amended until the barges sailed out of Nigeria, with the exception of the three
units that were practically purchased by the Lagos State Government and mounted
at Ikorodu. I know these details because I was a consultant for Enron and their
local partner on the project.
Earlier
on, my company had convinced the Enel Corporation of Italy to bring their
facility that was at the time generating 5,000 mw in one location to come to
Nigeria to reassemble the same at no cost to the Government of Nigeria. The
Government was only to pay for the amount of electricity that was given to NEPA
through their transmission lines. Of course, their offer was also rejected.
The
electricity generation distribution then was about 3000 mw, today it is still
only 4000 mw.
NO
ELECRTRICITY, NO GROWTH IN THE ECONOMY
The
sectors currently contributing more to our GDP are the extractive industries,
the service industries and Agriculture, in which electricity supply can be operated
by generators. The contribution of the manufacturing sector to our GDP in the 2nd
quarter of this year is only 8.55%. When the big factories begin to work to
capacity they will employ the youths of the country, then poverty will reduce
and protests will reduce as well. Manufacturing impacts the economy in a big
way because the factories provides livelihood to their employees, their
suppliers and the distributors of their products. No factory can run profitably on diesel
generators. Only grid power can make the desired impacts.
What I do
not know, howeve, is whether those who frustrated all efforts by the Private
sector in Nigeria to improve the national electricity generation and
distribution in the country will today be telling themselves that what we have
today was what they desired all along, or will be telling themselves that
things could have been done differently and better when they were on the
saddle.
The
mistake of the Power Policy probably gave the Federal Government the impetus to
privatise the telecommunication sector with the auction of the GSM license in
spite of the loud objections of NITEL in 2001. Today, everybody is enjoying the
economic benefits of that privatisation and the investment in technology that
has come to the country since 2001 because of that bold decision.
I am not a
critic of the civil servants. They are set in the mould of protecting our
citizens from foreign exploitation. However, in these days of globalised
economies, collaboration rather than protectionism is the best way to develop
our emerging economy.
CONCLUSION:
The
Subject that we are discussing today is of very great importance to our dear
country. Nobody is a repository of knowledge. On occasions like this when such
a forum is provided for people to share their experience and proffer solutions
to our contemporary national problems, the joy of it will be when we see
concrete steps being taken to formulate appropriate policies by the authorities
concerned from the advice and opinions of the distinguished Nigerians who have
taken part in the discussion in this forum today. All of us want the very best
for our country and all of us are stakeholders in this great country.
God has
given us everything we need to be a great country; large population, large
expanse of arable land, two major rivers and many more smaller rivers and
streams, hundreds of kilometres of pristine coast line, the best weather in the
world, large oil and gas deposits, gold and other precious minerals, a large
and very educated workforce and members of the Armed Forces and security
services that have excelled in all their international assignments.
All we
need now is the ability to put our best feet forward. Those manning the various
departments of our government at the Federal, State and Local Government levels
must be persons who have the competence to meet the demands and challenges of
their offices and people ready to give their required services to the nation.
Thank you
and God bless you.
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