Immediately the executive arm bill for the establishment of state police sailed through the National Assembly, some Nigerians, including longtime supporters of decentralized policing, started bellyaching. Everyone from news anchors to activists, not to mention opposition politicians, suddenly started trembling at the lips and appeared to be suffering from something akin to buyer’s remorse in their attempts to be politically correct. They spoke and are speaking from both sides of their mouths as the reality of decentralized policing dawns on them. They are demanding nationwide consultation as if that’s not what will happen when the bill gets to the states. They are looking for a way, an excuse, to say they warned should something go wrong when the plan takes off.
Nothing will go wrong once the scheme is carefully implemented. What is playing out is a case of analysis paralysis. Those nagging are overexamining the issue to the point of inaction. The debate for state police, as with the structural adjustment of Nigeria as a whole, has been on for decades. Should Nigerians decide to pursue it now, we can to some degree do it without fatally hurting the polity based on what we already know from the many years of debates and consultations on it. There is nothing ominous about it. It is simply placing policing on the concurrent list, like this administration already did with electricity generation. Many of those mouthing consultation are merely stalling. The same way they did when they claimed restructuring meant different things to different people the moment it came to acting on it. That was what they did in their attempt to block the tax reforms. Consultation can be done on the go, and the likes of Dr. Olisa Agbakoba and Dr. Charles Omole are doing their bit.
