Secretary of the Presidential Working Group on the National Policing Bill, Nnadubem Moghalu, reiterated that The National Policing Bill cannot be transmitted to the National Assembly until the constitutional amendment process is completed.
Speaking during an interview with ARISE NEWS on Friday, Moghalu said the constitutional amendment would pave the way for a dual policing model in Nigeria, while the proposed bill would provide the framework for its implementation insisting that working group was preparing the bill for consideration once the constitutional process is concluded.
“Before the National Policing Bill can become a public document, before it can be transmitted to the National Assembly for consideration, the constitutional amendment process must be complete first, because that’s the starting point.”
He noted several states had already considered and passed the constitutional amendment bill.
“And like you mentioned when you were speaking, four states have considered and passed the constitutional amendment bill. We have Zanfara has also done that,” he said.
“We are reasonably confident that within a very short period of time, we will reach the 24-state threshold that is required by the Constitution.”
He disclosed that the working group was preparing to transmit the National Policing Bill to the National Assembly as soon as the constitutional amendment became law. “What we are doing now and what we have been doing throughout this process is to make sure that whenever the constitutional amendment is completed, we will be ready to immediately transmit the National Policing Bill to the National Assembly for consideration and enactment into law.”
Moghalu oultlined the proposed framework was intended to support the full implementation of a dual policing model in Nigeria while also declining to disclose specific provisions of the bill before it became public. “You are asking me to pre-empt the process by telling you things that are in the bill. I will ask you to wait a little bit longer until that bill becomes a public document and all of those questions are answered there.”
He said the working group was considering ways to prevent political interference and misconduct by police officers under the proposed system.
“What I can tell you, however, is that considerations about making sure that this system is as immune to abuse as possible, whether it’s political abuse at the political level or operational abuse by the police personnel on the ground, these are the things that are influencing our thinking.”
Moghalu added that the public would be able to assess the proposed safeguards when the bill was released. “The Nigerian people will see that we have thought very carefully about these problems and how to solve them.”
He said the Presidential Working Group would meet the following Thursday to review the draft bill and make final recommendations. “The Presidential Working Group is going to meet on Thursday next week to review the draft of the National Policing Bill which is ready and make final recommendations which will be implemented by the Secretary before validation by the Ministry of Justice and presentation to Mr. President for his review.”
Moghalu stressed that presenting the bill to the president would not mean it could immediately be sent to the National Assembly. “We will conclude with our assignment and have a document presented to Mr. President within the next two weeks.”
He pointed out the working group had received submissions from institutional stakeholders. “One of the most exciting things about doing this work over the last couple of months is to see that a lot of the submissions that came in from the public were submissions around ideas that we were already considering. So, those submissions helped us to validate our own thoughts throughout this process.”
He clarified that the working group planned to publish the submissions and data on public participation as part of its final report. “We will open up all that data for you to be able to access on our website.”
Moghalu also said the work extended beyond the National Policing Bill to include changes to existing laws required to support the proposed framework. “Because people forget that in addition to the National Policing Bill, there are going to be about 62 consequential amendments across all the legislation and we’re doing all of that work at the same time.”
He put the country’s total police strength at about 380,000 officers serving a population of roughly 240 million people, but said many officers were assigned to duties outside active policing. “It comes out to somewhere around 1 to 650, I think, one police officer for every 650 citizens, whereas the international best practise requires that you have a minimum of one police officer for every 400 citizens.”
He said the ratio was worse when officers in special protection units and administrative roles were excluded from the active policing workforce. “When you remove those people from the 380,000, your actual policing numbers come to somewhere around 200,000 police officers, active police officers. That becomes one police officer for somewhere around every 1,000 citizens. That’s not workable. It’s not sustainable.”
Moghalu said increasing police numbers would not be enough without improving recruitment, training, equipment and other resources.
“But in addition to the numbers, because you don’t solve any problem if what you do is just increase the numbers of people on the streets who are carrying guns. You may end up creating more problems.”
He recalled the proposed model was intended to improve both the number and effectiveness of officers deployed to protect Nigerians. “So when you fix the numbers problem, and then you fix the individual and policing capacity problem, and you fix the institutional problem, very quickly you will start to see results in the lives of Nigerians.”
Moghalu also argued that one police service could not effectively handle serious crimes and local offences at the same time. “It’s not feasible to expect one police service to deal with terrorism offences, to deal with international human trafficking offences, and also be responsible when somebody steals somebody’s goat in the village. That’s the model we have now, and it clearly is not working.”
Erizia Rubyjeana
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