Assessing the Merits of Police Reformation in Improving National Security: a Case Study of the 2020 Endsars Protest
CHAPTER ONE
Objective of the study
The primary objective of this study is to assess the merits of police reformation in improving national security. Specifically, the study seeks to:
- Elucidate on the importance of Nigeria Police reformation.
- Ascertain how the ENDSARS protest brought about Police reformation in 2020.
- Discuss why the ENDSARS protest is a symptom of bad governance in Nigeria.
CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW
The concept of Police Brutality
The most appropriate entry on “police brutality” might simply include a collection of images. For example, those photos of German shepherd police dogs attacking Civil Rights marchers in the 1960s and of police officers blasting those marching with fire hoses, or more recently the notorious film footage from the infamous Rodney King beating in 1991. Twenty years later, Kelly Thomas, a homeless man in Orange County, CA, was beaten to death by police. This incident, also captured on video, provides powerful evidence that the phenomenon is still present. These images, and thousands of others like them, are appropriate not only because a picture is worth a thousand words but also because police brutality is one of those phenomena that “we know when we see it.” However, such imagery does not have to be physical. The mental images conjured by the case of Abner Louima, a Haitian immigrant who was brutally beaten and sodomized by New York City police officers with a toilet plunger in 1997, just as powerfully illustrate an easy to agree upon incident of police brutality.
CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Research Design
The method used in this study is mainly of doctrinal or library research in nature. The theory-based teaching methodology will allow the researcher to consult, address, examine, study and fill in the gaps in the authors’ work contained in textbooks, magazines and the Internet. The data collected through library research, which the researcher reads, writes and collects relevant information about this project. When seeking information from related documents, such as books, scientific journals and others that consider the main problem of this subject of study, the researcher tries to draw conclusions from examining various views.
Population of Study
The target population for this study comprised of all empirical studies carried out on Police Reformation, Security reformation, and EndSars Protest.
Sample Size and Sampling Technique
In view of the researcher’s inability to assess the entire population the research used sample cases. The study accessed, reviewed and discussed the answers to the research questions from 12 sources from library and digital sources. This was done to enable the student proffer answers to the research questions.
CHAPTER FOUR
DATA PRESENTATION AND DISCUSSION
Introduction
In this chapter, opinions, views, events and historical facts were sourced and presented. The conclusion of this study was drawn from the data presented and discussed in this chapter. The discussion was aimed at providing suggestive answers to the research questions raised in chapter one. All the data presented in this chapter were purely secondary data and their sources have been properly cited and referenced for further studies.
CHAPTER FIVE
CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
CONCLUSION
Political and institutional reforms are triggered by both internal and external pressures and opportunities, by pressures such as Protest (EndSars), scarcity, poverty, and food insecurity as well as by changes in global terms of trade and the requirements of development partners.
Additionally, policies are produced and implemented in an institutional context. Institutional reform (Nigeria Police Force)processes are inherently political, making generalization and advocacy of single-dimensional solutions impractical. Needed instead are insightful analysis of what is possible, coalition building, and effective champions of change. Reforms do not start from a blank slate, but are embedded in a socio-technical context with a history, culture, environment, and vested interests that shape the scope for change.
These well established conditions are in a state of flux that can create opportunities for negotiating reforms, but outcomes are inherently unpredictable. Also, the state remains the main driver of reform for the foreseeable future but is also the institution most in need of reform. The state must take responsibility for ensuring effective participation between the Nigeria police force and the communities.
Protecting essential interest groups is also vital for many reasons, including their importance to poor people’s livelihoods. Furthermore, Knowledge and human capacity are critical to implementing successful police reforms management and to crafting institutions and policies for reducing police brutality, blantant disregard of human rights by officers, thereby creating strong friction between the police and the communities. More reliable data are needed and must be shared widely with stakeholders to empower them through greater awareness and understanding. Further, new skills and capacities within the management of the Nigeria Police Force are critically important—at this time when even the political administration cannot be trusted by the people.
Writing new laws and passing administrative orders achieve little by themselves. Investments of time and other resources in public debate based on shared, trusted information pay off by creating knowledge, legitimacy, and understanding of the reasons for change, and increase the likelihood of implementation. Knowledge sharing and debate create opportunities for including and empowering poor stakeholders—those with the most to gain (or lose). Coalitions of stakeholders and political reformers can lead a reform process that will strengthen both the state and civil society to play more effective roles in water management.
RECOMMENDATION
- All reform efforts should be based on the understanding that a security sector that is accountable to civil authorizes and ordinary people is structured to meet security threats to individuals, their communities and their country and is affordable, promoting not only the security of the country in question, but also the security of the region in which it is located and that at the international community.
- Reform efforts and support should be based on local demand. This implies a willingness to provide support needs identified sub national and national level. This also implies a willingness to develop a reform friendly environment by engaging national authorities and civil society in its various manifestation to articulate to articulate needs and propose constructive approaches.
- External actors willing to help in local reform conceived and driven reform proceeds will take time and require an interactive approach. Entry points are likely to be far from perfect and local actors will be learning by doing. Progress is likely to be measured in small steps. Patience and a willingness to take risks will be essential. Ø
Adequate budgetary provisions should be made to funds available to the security sector (agencies) Ø
Modern sophisticated equipments should be provided for the security sectors to make it match the growing demands of contemporary global security challenges. Ø
The morale of men and officers of our security agencies should be boasted through re- orientation, retraining and adequate re numeration.
On the basis of the trajectory of Nigeria’s democratic dispensation, several challenges will remain central to any quest for security sector reform. Nigeria is still experiencing some shocks in its political economy in its attempt to deal with its post-military, prolonged authoritarian past. While electoral politics is key to the consolidation of the democratic process, there are fears that severe security problems triggered by lack of access to resources might create deteriorating security challenges. Commentators cite the various resource control crises in Nigeria as the touchstone of the issue This underscores the important point that this is a process and that there is no teleological link between military disengagement and consolidation of democracy. Yet, deepening democracy is a core requirement for building an accountable and transparent state and achieving effective security sector reform.
REFERENCES
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- Akers, 2000. Criminological Theories: Introduction, Evaluation and Application. Los Angeles: Roxbury.
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- Kappeler, Victor E., Richard D. Sluder, and Geoffrey Alpert.2001. ‘‘Breeding Deviant Conformity: The Ideology and Culture of Police.’’ Pp. 290–316 in Critical Issues in Policing: Contemporary Readings, 4th ed., edited by Roger Dunham and Geoffrey Alpert. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press.
- Conser, James A. 1980. ‘‘A Literary Review of the Police Subculture: Its Characteristics, Impact and Policy Implications.’’ Police Studies 2: 46–54
- Skolnick, Jerome H. 1966=1994. Justice Without Trial: Law Enforcement in Democratic Society. New York: John Wiley.
- Aldous Huxley, Point Counterpoint, Ljubljana: Cankarjeva zalozba, 1971, p. 267. All living beings are equipped with mechanisms which make above all two things possible: firstly, protection of the integrity of an individual, and secondly, the reproduction of species. Their behavior is to a great extent conditioned by their motivation and emotional state. International Journal on World Peace, March 1991, pp.19-20.
- Vojin Dimitrijevic, The Concept of Security in International Relations, Beograd: Savremena Administracija, 1973, p. 11.
- Mario Nobilo, “The Concept of Security in the Terminology of International Relations,55 Political Thought, October-December, 1988, pp.72-73 6.
- Amin Hewedy, Militarization and Security in the Middle East, London: Pinter Publishers, 1989, p. 16. 7.
- Zdravko Mlinar, “Sovereignty, Interdependence and Menace,55 Theory and Practice, October-November, 1991, pp. 1163-1174.
