CHALLENGESAND PROSPECTSOF COMMUNITY POLICING IN NIGERIA

Abstract

Police officers require public support for effectivelaw enforcement. Progressive loss of confidence in the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) haveprevented functional cooperation that is critical to policing effectiveness. The adoption of community policing as an alternative policing model by the Police Management Team (PMT) in 2002 was therefore expected to reduce relational conflicts and promote collaboration. Contrary to expectations that scholars would examine the workings of community policing in detail, research focus has remained largely on crime, governance and human rights. This study, therefore, examined motivations for the introduction of community policing, challenges of its implementation, the extent to which the initiative has impacted policing practice and the prospect of community policingin Nigeria. Wilson and Kelling’s Theory of Incivilities and Cohen’s Theory of Social Reproduction provided the framework. The research design was cross-sectional survey involving 900 copies of two sets of self-structured questionnaires that were administered in three police stations each in three pilot Divisions created by PMT in Enugu, Kaduna and Ogun States. Unstructured interviews were conducted with sixteen key informants: Deputy Inspector General of Police (Operations);Deputy Commissioner of Police (community policing); three coordinating Assistant Commissioners of Police and three Divisional Police Officersin each pilot state; theProgramme Officer, British Council/Department for International Development Community Policing Support Programme and the national coordinator of Network for Police Reform in Nigeria (NOPRIN). In addition, six focus group discussions comprising an average of six persons including police officers, Police Community Relations Committee officials, leaders of community vigilante and selected civil society groups were conducted in each state covered by the study. Data were content analysed. Experimentation with community policing stemmed from the felt need to address negative perception and reinvent the NPF as a people-and-service-orientedorganisation. Implementation challenges included: low coverage as the scheme covered only 129 (2.0%) of Nigeria’s 6424 administrative units; its perception as elite-dominated and elite-driven; poor understanding and low penetration of community policingphilosophy;low level of community ownership of policing preferences and strategies; poor documentation of the gains of community policing; indiscriminate transfer of officers trained in community policing techniques and retention of centralised control of the NPF which shows low adaptation to required change. The PMT appeared committed to adoption of community policing nationwide and there was an increased focus on training and retraining, attitudinal change, publication and circulation of training manuals on different aspects of community policing and the forging of collaboration for problem solving with diverse stakeholders. State governments, local councils and communities across Nigeria are also deepening community policing practice by establishing and funding Security Trust Funds, Police Community Consultation Committees and Neighbourhood Watch schemes as forms of strategic support to the police. Community policing promoted mutually-beneficial collaboration and policing effectiveness in pilot communities. The Nigerian government should decentralise the structure of the Force and support full implementation of community policing nationwide, while the Police Management Team should sensitise the public on the viability of community-policing as a collaborative problem-solving approach to relational and security challenges.