IMPACT OF SECURITY SYNERGY BETWEEN THE POLICE AND COMMUNITY POLICING ON THE CONSTITUTIONALLY GUARANTEED RIGHTS IN NIGERIA
CHAPTER ONE:
GENERAL INTRODUCTION
1.1. Background of the Study
Impact Of Security Synergy Between The Police And Community Policing On The Constitutionally Guaranteed Rights In Nigeria.In the discourse of security in Nigeria, Okorie, Jega, Salawu, Onyishi, Ezeoha, and Lewis have identified several causes of security crisis in Nigeria that pose grave consequences to national development. Chief among them is ethno-religious conflicts that have claimed many lives in Nigeria. By ethno-religious it means a situation in which the relationship between members of one ethnic or religious and another of such group in a multi-ethnic and multi-religious society is characterized by lack of cordiality, mutual suspicion and fear, and a tendency towards violent confrontation.
Since independence, Nigeria appears to have been bedevilled with ethno-religious conflicts. Over the past decades of her Nationhood, Nigeria has experienced a palpable intensification of religious polarization, manifest in political mobilization, sectarian social movements, and increasing violence. Ethnic and religious affiliations determine who gets what in Nigeria; it is so central and seems to perpetuate discrimination. The return to civil rule in 1999 tends to have provided ample leverage for multiplicity of ethno-religious conflicts.
As part of the social contract which the state has the obligation to fulfil for exercising the power which belongs to the people, the government is expected to provide adequate security for the citizens. Consequently, the Nigerian government has set up various security agencies for both the internal and external protection of the citizens. The 1999 Constitution of Nigeria underscores this when it declares: that the security and welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of government. But the veracity is that security is a thing of partnership between the state and the citizens. A security system entails all that the state and citizens do from individual to institutional level to ensure the security of lives and property.10
The problem of the Nigerian polity is that there is no strong will to entrench law and order in the Nigerian polity. If there were only one man in a State in Nigeria, there would be no need for rules of law or regulations because there would be no upsetting of existing equilibrium caused by the acts of another person; there would be no conflict of any type.
Perhaps all that would be necessary would be for one to avoid injuring oneself through one’s own act. No wonder, Farrar notes that a solitary individual is a hermit living in complete isolation from other human beings probably requires nothing more than habits. Since this scenario only exists at the utopic realm, law became necessary to help in the quest to actualise order. It became the tool for social engineering. Law is the pillar of social code; a society without laws is a living anachronism. In the absence of law and order organised life is impossible. Thus, law defines the extent to which it will give effect to the interests which it recognizes, in the light of other interests and of the possibilities of effectively securing them through law; it also devises means for securing those that are recognised and prescribes the limits within which those means are to be employed.
Rule of law is a key component of the social and political orders found in liberal democratic states. Aristotle insisted that it is preferable that law should rule other than a single one of the citizens. According to Aristotle:
He who ask law to rule is asking God’s intelligence and not others to rule while he who ask for the human being is bringing in a wild beast, for human passion is one like wild beast and strong feelings lead astray rules and the very best of men. In law, you have the intellect without passion.14 This means that man’s freedom is conditioned in a society where there is rule of law. Therefore, where the law rules, violation of its stipulations will attract penalty. Many people obey law in order to avoid the unpleasant consequences that may follow disobedience to law. Amadi explains that:
The rule of law is the infrangible cord that connects all wings of law, giving meaning to all laws in any political authority. The rule of law simply says that laws should be obeyed by everyone – the ruler and the ruled. It is this obedience that gives life a meaning. Life begets society, and if life is meaningless because of absence of the rule of law, then we may have an anarchic society.
