Pastor, Lawyer and renowned security expert, AIG Bola Longe (rtd) was our guest on our weekly radio show, Parrot Xtra on Radio’ anchored by Olayinka Agboola and broadcast live on Splash 105.5FM, Felele Ibadan, the capital city of Oyo State recently. During the interaction, he revealed how he spent over thirty-three years in active service without demanding or receiving any bribe and why the federal government needs to fund the Nigeria Police Force among many salient issues… Excerpts:
How is life after retirement?
I have been coping very well. I will say that I prepared well before retirement. I never thought I would be a police officer because I was a strong member of the Student Union Government (SUG) in the University of Ibadan. As a matter of fact, I was a Students’ Union president. You see, one day, I dreamt that I was waiting in line to collect a police uniform and in the dream, I was told to wait for my turn. My joining the police force was an act of God. I joined the NPF on March 15, 1988.
You are always saying it to who cares to listen that you never collected a bribe while serving as a police officer…How were you able to do this sir?
Before joining the Force, I vowed never to collect bribes. I was born again before joining the force. It will be an error for a past SUG president of the University of Ibadan to collect bribes. God empowered me not to take bribes. I spent over 33 years in the NPF without collecting any bribe.
Our society is always critical of the Nigeria Police Force (NPF). What is your reaction to this?
I am not against people castigating the Nigeria police; it is a derivation of the larger society. They are from Nigeria and not from Jupiter. If our policemen are corrupt, then Nigerians are corrupt. It is just that the corruption in the force is advertised beyond proportion. The police are not as corrupt as the people think, go to other organizations, their retirees are very rich compared to the people who retired from the force. People should stop castigating the police and the Nigeria government should endeavor to help the NPF.
I interviewed a serving AIG in 2012, he told me vividly that most of the then serving National Assembly were criminals, corrupt officials and drug barons. He said if he was allowed to do his job as a police officer, he would arrest half of them, do you think he was right that time?
That was in 2012. That means he must have seen them from close quarters through his activities when he was in the police, and I cannot say whether he was right or wrong, but I know the retired AIG as a professional officer to the core and not a frivolous man. He knows what to do, when, why and how.
He definitely must have seen them from close quarters and from my own analysis too, some of the members of the National Assembly, even as currently constituted, cannot be vouched for. Some of them are corrupt and if we were to carry out an exhaustive investigation, many of them will be indicted, but our system in Nigeria has not developed to that level, anything goes in Nigeria, but God will help us. We cannot continue to embrace corruption in this country; otherwise, the Nigerian state will be destroyed.
When former President Muhammadu Buhari was coming in, he stated it in his agenda that he wanted his administration to tackle corruption. How was the government able to fulfill this especially in connection with the welfare of police officers?
The government of President Muhammadu Buhari tried as much as possible in assisting the welfare package of the police, but that was not sufficient. Obviously, police was badly funded and is still badly funded, if not for the assistance of the state governments towards the Nigerian police, it would have collapsed, because state governments sponsor most of the operations carried out by the police.
The police need extra care, welfare packages and a high living package. I think no organization should be paid better than the Nigerian police because they do a lot of things and without their existence, the Nigerian state cannot exist.
I want you to shed more light on why the state government in Nigeria is responsible for the sustenance of the NPF. What are the duties of the national committee responsible for proper funding of the NPF? Is the Force not under the control of the federal government rather than state government?
It is good that the state governments are assisting the police because the states are their operational theatre and they are working for the safety, lives and property of the local people, so it is not bad for the state governments to assist the police. More so, the federal government should focus more on how to enhance the welfare of the police; policing is money, to provide logistics you need to spend a lot of money. Things needed by the police are not available.
When I was a junior officer about 36 years ago, the police had sufficient vehicles, and fuel dumps where we used to collect fuel. All these are no longer existing. We need to know that most of the police officers going for operational duties depends on the fuel given to them by good citizens, and because of this, it will be difficult for the police to turn around if these so-called “good citizens” commit a crime, they won’t be able to frontally accuse them and arrest them.
The federal government has neglected the police so much. You see, I was the Commissioner of Police in Nasarawa state for 31 months, I worked with two governors, Gov. Tanko Almakura and the current governor, Engr. A.A. Sule and they both supported the police and other security agencies with total focus and interest. They funded all of our operations and because of that it was not difficult to achieve success.
Recently, it was approved by Nigerian Speakers that state police should be floated. Now, if the governors have their own state police, won’t they abandon the NPF?
As a lawyer and a political scientist, any government that does not have a police is not a government, because that is a cohesive organ of the government, so the state must have their own system of policing. The only fear I am envisaging is that the government may find it difficult to pay the salaries of the police but I will suggest that they should continue to support the NPF. By the time a state like Oyo that has about 5,000 police considers the money that will be going into their salary, it will be too much; notwithstanding, we should try it as we can.
What will happen to the larger police force, if the state government stops supporting them?
Yes, but the federal government will be saddled with more responsibilities, the job of the central police will be taken over by the state police, and that will reduce the money the state governments are spending. I so much believe we should have state police and they should be properly guided so that they will not be misused.
Do you too agree that Nigeria is still under-policed?
Yes. We have less than 400,000 police in Nigeria where one police officer is for 400 people. I think we probably have one police officer to about 800 to 1000 people, which is abnormal and overstressing for the police.
How do you view the allocation of police officers to celebrities, politicians and other prominent people?
You need to know that there are some government officials like the president, vice president, governors, members of the national assembly, ministers and diplomatic people that deserve security, but the problem is that the volume of police officers they are moving around with is too much, they are doing that at the expense of the larger society.
When you over-police our leaders, it will lead to sectoral disequilibrium of police, whereby people will not be given sufficient police while our leaders will be having more than their own share. I think the government should do something about it, even though our leaders must be protected, otherwise, in a society like ours, anything can happen to them. However, I am not advocating that allocation of police officers to government officials should be stopped, but they should not be over distributed to them.
Why is insecurity on the rise in our society? What are the basic factors responsible?
When we are talking about insecurity, it is the absence of security. It is when laws and orders are impaired. Chapter four of the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as amended stated that when there is insecurity, you cannot move or associate freely and your life is endangered.
There are many factors expanding the frontiers of insecurity in the country; the police, which is the major organ of the state, is saddled with the responsibility of protecting lives, properties and maintenance of law and order is not well-equipped and well-funded.
The training and retraining that should be a daily operation is not done and the welfare package is zero and in addition, the members of the security agencies are not collaborating sufficiently. The military and the police are supposed to work together, the department of State Security Services (SSS) that is supposed to give intelligence to the police won’t do that, instead they will want to go and effect arrest on their own. The way things are done in Nigeria is weird and I can’t believe it, if all the security agencies will collaborate with themselves, things will work out beautifully.
I have an example, when I was the Commissioner of Police in Nasarawa State, the military combined effectively with the police, the DSS and occasionally the NSCDC, all of us combined together and we dislocated and dislodged the Darussalam elements that wanted to have a home in Nasarawa state, from where they want to launch an onslaught against the federal capital in Abuja.
By the time, all of us worked together with the backing of the government and the members of the society, we dislodged them, they were badly rooted out and they disappeared after we arrested a lot of them and they could not perform their satanic and dangerous anti-societal enterprise.
One thing I think should be done to address the issue of insecurity is that the government should focus more on the security agencies. They should endeavor to spend money because security is all about money.
Also, the way some elements are getting money in the country, where people become suddenly rich is motivating the younger ones to go into crime, and when criminals are in the society and in the government, that will distort security, therefore something needs to be done by the government and the people.
Presently in the southwest, insecurity level is becoming alarming; various criminal activities are being carried out in Lagos-Ibadan and Ibadan-Ijebu-ode. What do you think is causing it, who are the people collaborating with them?
I worked in Ogun state for 17 months as the Deputy Commissioner in charge of operations, and during the time I was there, together with my commissioner then, we effectively policed the Lagos-Ibadan expressway, Sagamu-Ijebu-ode and Ore road, with painstaking operations, day and night.
I was always visiting my men and we had meetings with the members of the public and we harnessed their support policing the areas, we need to know that security and policing is not the job of the police officers alone, the traditional rulers, government, police community relations committee must combine their effort with the police.
When the people support the Nigeria police, there will be no hiding place for any criminal, and I believe we can do that. The fact is that we have the least insecurity in the southwest, I have been to other parts of the nation and I can say that southwest is the best place where there is peace, law and order, where lives are being protected, but we need to do more.
We also need to know that there are some people referred to as travelling criminals, who travel from one place to another causing insecurity, they are from outside the country while some are within the country. When you are monitoring those who are committing crime in your area and you don’t operate your intelligence very well it might be difficult to apprehend them because they are outsiders.
On the tussle between farmers and Fulani, how do you think we can find a lasting solution? They are killing our farmers and the farmers are in turn running away, what can the government do?
There is no need for the farmers to run away, they should not be deprived of their land. The government, community leaders and the Fulanis should come together to collaborate instead of the farmers leaving their lands for them. I believe the intervention (of government) will definitely solve the issues on ground.
Anti-corruption battle in Nigeria, can we ever win it?
We can win the anti-corruption battle in Nigeria only if they place those who are not corrupt in-charge of anti-corruption, you cannot appoint a criminal to tackle corruption, he will only enhance the visibility of his corrupt network.
I want you to seize this opportunity to say one or two things to Nigerians, our political leaders and your colleagues in the Nigerian police
I want to appeal to the members of the public that this is our country, and we have no other country to run to, therefore, all of us must work together to make this country work. God has done so well for this country; we have resources more than any country in the world, we have mineral resources all over the federation called Nigeria.
We have climatic conditions that are friendly and our vegetation covers from swampy forest in Bayelsa to Sahel savanna in the north, our country is the best. Let all of us put our hands together and work for the advancement of this country and I pray that the government at all levels will be able to do the right thing.
The government and the police must do the right thing; the police are actually doing their best and I want you to know that the police in Nigeria are angels, they are working virtually without anything and that is why when we go outside the country, we perform extraordinarily.
We are always the best when we go outside for UN operations because when we get there, we have everything we want but at home, there is nothing to work with. Government should provide working tools for the police.
