Professor Kemi Rotimi, a renowned Nigerian police historian and scholar at Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, has labeled Nigeria’s much-touted community policing initiative as deceptive. Speaking on Inside Sources with Laolu Akande on Channels Television, the academic critiqued the Nigerian Police Force’s (NPF) approach, calling it a superficial strategy often propelled by donor funding rather than genuine commitment to reform.
“What Nigerian Police headquarters call community policing, if I call it a scam, I wouldn’t be too wrong. The noise about community policing will be deafening when there’s donor agency money. The moment the money dries up, the noise will go down. In the last two years, have you noticed that you’ve not head much of community policing? The Nigerian Police Force as constituted cannot do community policing,” he said.
Rotimi also questioned the feasibility of building mutual trust between the police and the public, not just in Nigeria but globally. “Mutual trust between police and the people? Does that exist anywhere in the world? Policing involves giving one individual the state authority to curtail the freedom of another. Naturally, this creates tension. The duties of the police—crime prevention, criminal apprehension, and maintaining law and order—are inherently conflictual. However, this does not mean the relationship between the police and the public must always be adversarial. While they may not be bosom friends, they need not be sworn enemies either.”
On the challenges police officers face, particularly in crowd control, Rotimi highlighted the precarious nature of their duties. “Crowd control is incredibly risky. When a police officer is invited to manage a rowdy situation, they have no way of knowing the intentions of individuals within the crowd. Discretion becomes the fundamental tool in such scenarios, and yet, it is fraught with potential misjudgments.”
Taking a historical perspective, the professor debunked the idea that Nigeria’s policing woes are a recent phenomenon. He pointed to systemic issues that date back decades, sharing a shocking revelation from a 1977 report. “Many Nigerians romanticize the past, believing it was a better time. But I’m a historian, and I can tell you that’s far from true. As far back as 1977, police officers in Lagos were living in disused vehicles within the premises of the Obalende Police Station. Imagine the flagship station in the country housing its officers in such deplorable conditions.”
