POLICING Nigeria in the 21st century.
Date
2007-04
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Ibadan, Oyo State: Spectrum House Ring Road PMB 5612 Spectrum Books Limited,
Abstract
Background to a new order; Organisation and reorganisation; Investigations/prosecution; The police and Its public; Welfare and productivity issues; Contemporary challenges for law enforcement; Salient aspects of the policing function.
Description
Peace and security of life and property are primary conditions for the progress of society. All over the world, the principal agency established by governments to guarantee the internal peace and security of nations, and by implication their progress also, is the police. To this extent therefore, the standard of policing available to a country is a veritable indicator of its level of development. Consequently, it is axiomatic to observe that the developed economies of the modern world have highly efficient police organisations, while the police forces of Third World nations are reflective of their inferior social, economic and political status. Within this context also, the Nigeria Police is that very visible guardian of the social, economic and political interest of the nation, as measured by the prevailing climate of peace and security of lives and property throughout the length and breadth of Nigeria. Theirs is a constitutionally assigned responsibility that successive generations of policemen and women have tried to fulfill since the Force came into being, first, as a tool of colonial oppression and later as an expression of the corporate will of a free and independent country under, the control of the executive arm of government. Opinion may be widely divided on how well the Nigeria Police has executed its statutory mandate to maintain peace and protect law and order in the country. There can be no doubt or dispute however, that the perfect police cannot exist before the advent of the perfect society. Evidently, therefore, the challenge of law enforcement gets even more complex as society gets ever more sophisticated. As such, the Police in Nigeria must contend always with the various social, economic and political developments that take place in Nigeria and around the world. For example, the creation of new states and local governments had implications for law enforcement that were not always sufficiently addressed before these popular administrative policies were taken. In like manner, the benefits of technological developments such as mobile telephony and the World Wide Web are available to both the honest citizens and the criminal fraternity alike.