The establishment of the State Police to the rescue.
We can only continue to hope that all the bitter and unfortunate incidents which continue to permeate every sphere of our national lives during this Covid 19 pandemic will at the end of the day make everyone of us to start thinking and reasoning beyond and above partinsanship and other pettiness, and begin to mount pressure for the immediate commencement of every process of effecting drastic changes in all necessary areas of our political system.
So many incidents and instances that had occurred in the past which ought to had made us overhaul our system and our laws, but which many of us as individuals, ethnic or political groups, for one selfish or petty reasons or the other had decided to ignore, as a result of which we are still paying dearly at this moment.
I can see all that is happening right now as some of the dangers and disadvantages of our over-centralized system of government.
I’ve realized that We’ve always been having very smart and very intelligent people at the helms of our affairs in this country, but their brilliance I can say categorically will never bring the desired change and development to the country for so many obvious reasons.
In this particular situation, which we can justifiably refer to as police indiscretion, I want to believe that the Inspector General of Police and his men could’ve arrived at such tough directives which forbids journalists as being categorized as essential workers during the Covid-19 Lock Down curfew as Mr Muyiwa Adejobi (Former Force PPRO, Ogun State Command) tried to explain in a given situation.
Such decision may be as a result of very reliable intelligence gatherings and reports that could’ve been made available to the police in some of those very high risk states in the northern part of the country, probably, some unscrupulous elements in those areas could’ve been undermining the government’s efforts in flattening the pandemic curves through various means, by parading themselves as essential workers in various fields including journalism.
Now, if my above assumption is anything to go by, such intelligence report and the restriction order would’ve been the best decision by the Inspector General of Police and his officers but we are all seeing how such well thought out decision in a particular region is becoming counterproductive in another region, simply because of our multiplicity and peculiarities, a very good law amongst a group of people may not necessarily be a good idea in another given location.
The thirst for fresh and news break amongst citizens of every state may differ, it is not an accident that the first newspaper in this country was established in my hometown of Abeokuta, so therefore if the Inspector General of Police decided to exclude journalists from the list of essential workers in some states, such decision may not serve the interest of the people of Ogun State whose citizen’s quest for news as they break will be grossly undermined by such directives.
One will expect the police department to treat every state or region according to their peculiarities, but since we are running a central Police system, it may be very difficult to give different directives to state police commands, except in Lagos for obviously understandable reasons, where discretionary enforcement is being allowed.
This is where the need for state police, which some of us has been clamouring for, to now become a child of necessity is getting more sacrosanct again.
The need for State Police in this current Nigeria and time can never be overemphasized.
If we already have state police in place, it would’ve been the responsibility of the Federal Police and other federal security agencies such as Immigration Service and other relevant agencies to enforce the inter state Lock Down restriction order, by strategically manning every inter state and International land borders, while the state police departments would’ve been handling their internal security aspect of ensuring the Lock Down in their respective states according to their peculiarities.
We’ve all been personally experiencing one of the very adverse effects of not having a workable system in place in our country in one unpleasant manner or the other, if those families taking their family members to the hospital for child delivery and other emergency medical needs were further delayed by the police during the Covid-19 Lock Down curfew in Abeokuta according to an eyewitness account, that could’ve led to another avoidable mortality.
We can all see the need to join the clarion call for the complete overhaul of our political administrative system in Nigeria.
If we all continue to play politics with the staggering realities that are repeatedly calling for a serious overhaul of our entire political system, I’m afraid we may continue to go in motion without any movement till eternity.
If all these at the end of the day fail to make us a better nation, I’m afraid we may miss another best opportunity to change the country for good.
Deji Ogundimu is of the opinion that the Nigeria of our dreams can not be achieved in the absence of sincerity and patriotism above self.
