 The disbandment of SARS is creating a vacuum, says Acting Inspector General of Police, I.G.P. Al-Khali Usman Baba and Opposition Party PDP says President Bahari is mortgaging our children's future with reckless borrowing. This is Plus Politics and I am Mary Anacoste. Acting Inspector General of Police, I.G.P. Al-Khali Usman Baba has stated that the disbandment of the special anti-robbery squad SARS has created a vacuum and efforts of the Nigeria police to tackle insecurity in the country. Lamenting that the repercussion of the end SARS protest, he said the regular policemen and women have not been able to immediately feel the vacuum created by the disbanded SARS, even though he said efforts are ongoing to train them for a new role. We're joining us to discuss this is Lawrence Alobi, former commissioner of police in the FCT, and Andy Aqbotiwe, a social reformer. Thank you, Andy, for joining us. Great. Andy, let's talk about how the police is in Nigeria. I mean, we all have had our reservations or brushed with the police, whether it was SARS or it was the I.G. special squad. I mean, there's so many different units right now in the Nigeria police force. But the job of the police, generally, is to fight crime and criminality. This is their mandate. They're supposed to police and protect us. But then, of course, the SARS department, which was labeled a rogue police unit, which cost us a lot of Nigerians to feel the streets in protest last year, apparently had been disbanded. But now the I.G. is saying that the vacuum that they're creating is causing them to not be able to fight on a scale that they would want to. So I'm wondering, is the I.G. trying to resuscitate or revive SARS? Is he telling us that these men and women can be brought back together to form that same unit that we were speaking against? So, Marianne, first of all, I would like to say that the police is a reflection of what really is ailing Nigeria. It's a reflection of the fact that we are never serious with dealing with issues that are able to take us on our knees consistently. This, for me, is an admittance of ineptitude. I'm going to be really very mild and gentle with my words because, Marianne, I feel really very annoyed, very, very annoyed. The Constitution did not recognize any special anti-rubbery squad. The Constitution recognized the creation of the Nigerian police force, charged with setting responsibilities that are very clear even to the blind and audible to the deaf. And in the process of administering or implementing all of those roles that were given them by the Constitution, I understand that they would establish structures that should help them carry out those responsibilities. And they are still there? Yes. But telling us that indeed they are unable to, you know, or that they feel that there is some lacuna, there is some vacuum created by, you know, the disbandment of the SARS and speaks to a lot of issues around incapacity, speaks to a lot of issues around the fact that we are not decided about what we really want to do with the Nigerian police force. And for people like us, I'm careful with the words I want to use tonight, Marianne. For people like us, it just tells us that this house indeed is falling. It's falling because we are admitting that we can no longer do what our responsibility is. Imagine, for instance, that you went to a teaching hospital and the new CMD is saying to you that because of the fact that there are certain nurses that were created to take care of certain responsibilities, he won't be able to attend to patients in the manner and in the way that he was attending to patients before. How would this come across to you as a Nigerian or as a patient? It behoves him as the CMD of the hospital to create structures that can help him carry out the responsibilities as had been handed over to him. This exactly is what we are talking about. And this is why some of us are thinking that this Nigerian state is becoming something else, Marianne. Well, we're joined by former CP, Commissioner of Police Lawrence, he was the Commissioner of Police at the FCT. He's retired now. Let me start by making reference to what the IGP said. He made an assertion that the NSAS protest had put a dampener on the morale of regular police personnel. So how does the demand by the public for some form of reformation of the police force, a demand for people who are supposedly armed by the law to protect and serve, who have become a rogue unit, a demand that that unit be disbanded and those people be reoriented or some of them be put behind bars to make sure that they do not fill out police system. And that become a problem for policing because they're saying that Nigerians shouldn't have protested. Is that what he means? That we shouldn't have protested against the fact that these rogue police units existed and the things that they were doing, the fact that they were killing people, they were extorting from people, they were targeting young successful Nigerians. Is the IGP insinuating, Mr. Lobby, that we shouldn't have protested and now we're not allowing the police officers to do their jobs? Is that what he's saying? You see, unfortunately in this country, everyone wants to know that he knows something about police operation. Everybody wants to come and dictate and dictate for the police what it ought to be. Every profession has its own methodology and principles and studies on how to achieve results. Security is critical and for the mental, for the protection of life of property, mental and public peace and security. And the mob is, police have strategies. Like you now, you're a journalist. You have a system that you develop. We're writing a speech. We want to interview an individual or a personality. You have a strategy. I cannot come and dictate to you how you should go about the agenda. The point is that Nigerian police come up with strategies where they can cop crime, maintain one other, prevent crime. But they probably don't come out of a sentiment. Again, I'm sorry to speak over you, but every single government entity, especially a police unit or the police force in itself, whatever modus operandi, whatever rules and regulations, whatever strategies they decide to employ, they all have to be done within the confines of the law. Isn't that supposed to be the case? Now, if they do err on the side of the law and it keeps happening over and over again, should we not ask the public query it? If you don't want me to talk, I'll cut off. No, no, no, I'm just following up. Mr. Lawrence, I'm just following up on what you said. Let me finish what I will say. Well, I have a right to ask you a follow-up question. You said that you have a strategy. I'm telling you what I was saying. Go ahead. Interjected. I'll have to let me do what I'm saying. Go ahead. So we can understand ourselves. Okay, go ahead. No, what is it? Oh, yes. We're done. Well, I'm giving you time to go ahead and you're still arguing. Make your point. Good. The point I'm making is that every statute, every organization, every institution has programmed strategies on how to function. The police will come out with strategies on how to make clients, prevent clients from putting them on property and public security. And then let me, one thing in this country is that we talk about freedom, freedom, freedom. We talk about our obligations as citizens. I was on the 24th year of the Council on Provides that every Nigerian has a duty to assist the Nigerian people on one order. When the police are, when there's high crime in the country, whom do they call police? When the police come out with strategies, the point is that what we should talk about is let those strategies well supervised, well organized. When you say you first start, cars are meant to prevent crime and to handle violent crime. When you say about a roadblock, roadblocks have effective use if they are properly supervised and coordinated. For instance, if somebody moves out with a car, people are kidnapped, somebody with arms in his car, and the police checkpoint stops him, or a military checkpoint or civil defense system and searching and call those arms. One, they have the ability to take crime, they have prevented crime, and they put it live on property. They put it live on property. You don't have to be used on innocent citizens. But they only form whole car roadblocks. Car roadblocks. Who should emphasize that? Let this roadblock be properly supervised. That's the important thing. Then the strategy is left in the house of criminals. Like now, some staples, some... When police have been attacked, their arms killed and their arms looked like... You know, they do the Niger one and that... When have you gone to the civil society? I've been protesting... I've been waiting for you to... I'm sorry, I apologize once again. I've been really earnestly waiting for you to make that point, but I'm going to ask that question again. You're advocating that... You're saying, of course, I totally agree with you. The police has its duty, its job, cut out for it. Yes, and you're asking that it be supervised. I'm going somewhere that it be properly supervised. It's been years. I remember when SARS started, when this whole issue started. I lived in Potaka for six years. We started a campaign on the radio because people kept complaining about a rogue police unit just kidnapping people from off the streets and taking them to a place and forcing statements out of them. If there was proper supervision, all of these things that happened to random people, people's children being killed and thrown into a lake in some place, couldn't have happened. So again, the dysfunctionality that's happening in the police force that is done outside of the law that actually supervises the policing in Nigeria, should the Nigerian people be blamed for it, or shouldn't it be the police that takes the blame for that dysfunctionality? I agree with you. I have said it with that number. If your effective permission has gone down the drain in the police, I can say it only comically. What I left before... I left the attack 14 years ago. I know how I was doing my duty. I worked with a person, right? But now most young ones... It's not a longer day. That's the point. It is effective on the supervision. And now these eyes can come out with strategies to ensure that these roadblocks or these strategies are going to be further supervised. In every situation in Nigeria, it's a stable system. You go to the hospitals, go to schools, go to everywhere. Usually the president of the police will be magnified. Everywhere he goes, there's failure. There's failure in all institutions. We don't play to the gallery. All institutions go to education, go to health, go to public service, go to the ministry. There's failure in everything because those moral values that guided our actions, those ethical values have been eroded. Interesting. I want to bring Andy back into this conversation. Andy, I asked him a question earlier on about the assertion that the NSAS protests put a dampener, this is what the IGP said, put a dampener on the morale of men and women of the force. And I'm going to ask you the same question. How does protesting against injustices and people taking advantage of a badge and a gun to perpetrate all forms of wickedness on innocent Nigerians amount to dampening of a morale of people who truly are supposed to protect and serve us? Mary Ann, that's going to be the most difficult question that I think will be so difficult that if you act it in a jam, a lot of us are not going to be able to answer it correctly. That question should not be to me because I can't wrap my mind around it. How that the structure was established in the first instance by the Nigerian police force to fight against crime. They established the structure. The structure is not in the constitution. The structure did not come from heaven. The structure was established by them. If we have discovered now that the structure is failing or there are certain things in the structure that runs far to the constitution, to morality, to good conscience in the society, and we have asked that the structure should be put down. Can this same police force not create another structure, create another system, create another process within itself to be able to handle that which the constitution has said they should do? The constitution did not say that doctors to police Nigeria. The constitution did not say nurses to police Nigeria. The constitution did not say the military to police Nigeria. The constitution says that the police force to police Nigeria, and it behooves them to draw up systems and structures that if properly monitored should be able to deliver on the abstinence of the constitution. So I don't understand that the fact that people rioted against a rogue police force, you know, that was everywhere running riots and swindling people. And these testaments are there for everyone to see, including the former Inspector General of Police. We all saw it. It's palpable, you know. Today as we speak, they were in different states, we saw all of the panels that were established and all of the testimonies that came out from the panels. These things were there. So it meant that they were not properly monitored. They were not properly managed. At the time they were running riots like cancerous cells in the body. And guess what happened? A very sensitive Inspector General of Police therefore said, no, we ain't going to have this anymore. Can we just crap this thing and have another system? I think that what we should be talking about today is, okay, we are confronted with these challenges. What can we quickly do? What can we quickly do? Given the fact that we have not removed the entirety of the men and women that are in the Nigerian police force, we have not sucked all of them. What can we quickly do with their intelligence? What can we quickly do with their trainings? What can we quickly do with their capacities to be able to develop certain units like we developed that can be properly managed? But Andy, I make that too... Andy, I'm concerned as to... I make both to say that one again. I'm sorry, I'm concerned as to picking people again randomly within the police force and I'm not in any way implying that we do not have fine officers in the police force. But what's the guarantee that we would not have another role, yet another role organization because with all of the things that we've seen, the track record that has been put out there, it seems that there's not been a handle on things. So how are we certain that these next sets of people that you're advocating for would not be also allowed to run amok because there seems not to be... Yes, there might be a strategy at first. There might be a training of sorts. But then once these people are let into the public, it seems that it's a free-for-all. So what's the guarantee that that might not happen again? I'm completely, completely tired. Completely tired about everything in Nigeria. I kid you not. At this question, I've asked a very, very, very important question. What's the guarantee? What's the guarantee? What's the guarantee that it's not going to repeat itself again? What's the guarantee that it's not going to be business as usual? What's the guarantee that we'll not have the few people come up again and they'll be doing even worse than the SARS people did? For me, I think that it's about sincerity of purpose. See, Marianne, I always say this. If you want to walk, I know the commissioner of police that we are currently in Tabien. I've followed him for a long time. And he's a good man. He's a very good man. He speaks very nicely. You will know that he's a finely trained man. See, Marianne, between you and I, I can tell you that if the boss wants to walk, he would walk, and the boys will know that it is not business as usual. It is just about monitoring. It is just about evaluating processes. Well, we have an IGP monitoring unit. What does that IGP monitoring unit do? Because we have it in every state. There's been this IGP monitoring unit. I don't know again, Marianne. You're asking the obvious questions. I don't know. Well, I'm going to pose the question. I'm going to pose the question to former C.P. Lawrence and Elobi again. Ms. Elobi, you heard the questions Andy is asking. Of course, I posed those questions to him. He's posing them back to me. What's the guarantee that the fine officers in the police force would not once again be stained by the rogue ones? Because the truth is that no police officer, a few of them have been sent off. But it's the same crop of people. Is it a mindset thing? Is it more like us, the people, influencing the police force? Because we're trying to understand. And why is it that it looks more like the people are the enemy here? Because what the IG is saying is that these people have lost morale. And I'm thinking to myself, if you, a former police officer, has a child who was kidnapped and killed because he had dreadlocks or he's driving a Mercedes Benz or he's carrying a laptop that makes him look like a Yahoo boy. Would you not be worried that maybe we're being seen as the enemy to the police force instead of them doing their job thoroughly? And why does it seem that people are being targeted? Yes, thank you very much. You see, the point is that every human being deserves to be given his or her right. And every human being should have a role, a role to play in society. Whatever capacity you belong, you are occupying. You see, there are some very fine police officers and there are some bad officers in every society. Even among the people of Israel, there were the Jews. So, the fact that there are some bad elements, the point is that each of the generalizations trying to generalize the police as an institution, right, that remember individuals are unethical in their behavior, they are unprofessional in their behavior, they may be found to be comparable to corruption or a traditional killing in the sense that the whole police force should be condemned. What is important is that they need to train at least that capacity building. I wasn't bothered on that. The IG should be bothered on training because they need to change the attitude. When I was in the police, when I was in CTF city, I tell my men, as you want your products to be put in your village, if you don't have a template, you want it to be brutalized, you don't do it in a brutal way. And that was the principle of health. And leadership is having full access. If a leader imparted on what he wants, and said, this is the standard I want, and he leads by that standard, the full access will keep. So, leadership of the police is also, actually the police should be able to say, what is the return of the citizens by being in line with ethical conduct. But the point that the study itself is, it is too toxic that it even affects what they are doing. Corrosion is like enormous Nigeria. And violence has not become an issue in terms of achieving goals in Nigeria. Watch. Even if you know that man has not done anything with any other person. If you know that man will not mobilize that man, burn his car, that is the culture of violence. It needs to reinstate Nigerians, the culture of peace and security. Moral character, moral values, it is a systemic problem. Not only the police is systemic, and we talk about system and processes. Process just based on rules. Rules of engagement. How are they supposed to conduct themselves? It is because it is the status itself. I've been so toxic in terms of how to give you value. So, the police is reinventing the police itself and transforming the police itself. You know, I share with you that the police man has power to support anybody. The law allows it to support anybody. Anybody is simply suspect, to stop and start. It doesn't mean when I start this version of the law, what they are giving the law to start, not to brutalize, not to use it on the police force. But the side is that it is the one that now they have seen violence. Now what is the situation is that is every police station that people are inside, everybody is inside, everybody is like the monitoring unit. But every police man is now seen as a target. That is what their morale is being demoralized. Maslow, like team motivation. Right? I'm going to ask you quickly because we're almost out of time. Let's talk about the police welfare. This is something that we really don't talk about very often. But if the police officers and men were listening to the protesters in 2020 and not make it look like they were their enemy, most of the things that these people were protesting for was police welfare. They were also asking that governments start to take care of these officers so that they can also police us well. I mean, you keep saying that there are fine men in the police force. But we see so many of these people on our highways. We see them within our streets. And half the time they're asking for handouts, they're asking for bribes. Some of them are not violent about it. They're very upfront about it. They want money. They're not really doing their jobs per se. I have interviewed somebody who was kidnapped and the person passed three police checkpoints. How did they get passed? Because the police officers were more interested in what they were going to get from the guy who was driving the car other than searching or being on alert. So, again, what is government, what should you be at? I mean, I know that you no longer work on the police, but should we not be prioritizing the welfare of police officers? Maybe this might be a start to making sure that we have more upright and right standing men in the police force instead of people who would go to every level to loot from the innocent Nigerians. Yeah. Like I said earlier, the value system has been so bastardized. So, like I said, in terms of all the sacraments in the state, we have some bad police officers. An officer who is on checkpoint is also sad and ensure that any body that may be suspects that may be scaring someone criminal or may be a weapon or may be a criminal, he has a lot to say. But sometimes, from them, they put the material gain rather than doing their job efficiently and effectively. I agree with you, it doesn't happen everywhere. People caught criminals everywhere other institutions. But the point that I have said is that again in this country I'm happy that this past project and process of police reform and police reform is not just cosmetic police reform. Reform that will affect their welfare, their training. Policing today, it is technologically driven. The police, look at the policemen in the U.S. I know the policemen in Ghana, even in Nigeria. 8K47. And maybe walking talking, not the health. It doesn't harm them. It's not protected. It's so vulnerable. And we should think about how do we mutilate the police? How do their welfare should be concerned? Look at last time. When they went to the clinic, the chief of the military and the president of the military military. He never mentioned that the police is important for the police. So everybody, the police has no point. They put it like an abandonment, like they are no fun. Nobody is supposed to be a police. The only one is that the police is the most town-wide institution in the country. How can we have the police? I haven't let the police. The police should know that one. Training. How much money for equipment? The police is knowledge-driven. We have to go. Policing is knowledge-driven. Former commissioner of police, Lawrence Alibi. He was the former CP for Abuja. That's the FCT. Thank you very much for speaking with us. And also, Andy, thank you so much for speaking with us. We are out of time. Unfortunately, we cannot do that. I'm so sorry, Andy. But of course, we will have this conversation again. Thank you, guys. Well, we'll take a short break. And when we come back, we will be speaking about what the PDP believes the Bahá'í administration is doing to the Nigerian children. Thank you, guys.