The Police as Human Shields

Fola Arthur Worrey

Two incidents in the past week brought me back to this topic, i.e., the allocation of thousands of armed police officers as VIP protection officers, or escorts, to all manner of individuals, both public and private, local and foreign, and through which rather informal process we have lost scores of men and, in my humble view, weakened the police force and thereby compromised the security coverage of the country. In the first incident, three police officers were shot dead during an attack, somewhere in the south, east on the motorcade of one Ifeanyi Ubah, a serving senator and an individual famous for his financial and business transactions also. The senator himself escaped death or injury because he was safely ensconced inside his bullet proof SUV. Of course, the police officers on escort duty were exposed in their soft-bodied pickup truck, and one might wonder why a bullet proof SUV still needed additional external and high risk escort, but then one needs to understand that these officers were primarily acting as human shields and were therefore considered expendable. (Sadly, after this article was written, we lost another four police officers who were escorting one Apostle Suleman during an attack somewhere in Edo State. He also escaped death, ensconced in his bullet proof SUV). And we need to understand that in Nigeria, these escort officers are often used more to add to the status of their “principals”, and less to protect them, and to allow their motorcades to proceed noisily and recklessly along the public highways, breaching traffic laws, sometimes clashing with constituted authority, and with supposed officers of the law validating and enforcing, often with aggressive behavior, sometimes with horsewhips, what is essentially a public nuisance.

The second incident involved a female police officer attached as an “orderly” (according to the official police statement from the office of the inspector general (IG) of police) to a female university professor, and who was brutally assaulted by the said professor and other members of her family for refusing to carry out some domestic duties that the professor insisted she do. The IG expressed his outrage and ordered an investigation, but I had hoped that he would take advantage of the situation to review the whole VIP protection racket as this was a golden opportunity, but as usual, all went quiet on the western front. I also thought that the professor would immediately be arrested and charged to court for what was essentially a criminal offence, but things like that don’t happen in this unusual, peculiar democracy of ours.

In addition to thousands of police officers escorting and “protecting” various individuals, we have thousands of others, armed also and paid from the public purse, protecting various private facilities such as banks, supermarkets, restaurants, night clubs, factories and private homes. And just recently, the armed police officers attached to a popular singer allegedly shot at a gentlemen in a night club apparently during an altercation between him and the singer over the singer’s persistent romantic approach to his wife. Imagine!

Now, the reason why I emphasize the fact that they are armed is not only because such arms are operated outside the normal police conduct on the use of firearms, but because new police recruits have to wait for at least three years before they can bear arms under police regulations; and so for those saying that we need to recruit more police men to face our current security challenges, note that they will not be much use in the very violent battles we are facing for some time to come. Only an immediate release of the armed escorts (over 130,000 of them and growing by police accounts) to their statutory duties will bring the police service back to a meaningful capacity.

Now, the big question I have for the police leadership and their constitutional masters, i.e., the federal government, is this: on what basis, legal or by convention, is this VIP protection racket based? And by what criteria are VIPs identified? In the first place, nowhere in the Constitution or the new Police Act (or even under the old one) is the IG, or any other official, empowered to deploy armed policemen to escort or guard specific private individuals or premises on a 24/7 basis as is currently the case. Rather, the Act, along with the constitution speaks of the duty of the police to protect lives and property generally, enforce the law and apprehend criminals. Indeed, the only reference the Act makes to protecting specific property is when it makes provision for the IG to deploy unarmed supernumerary (auxiliary) officers at the request of the individuals owning such property. I see nowhere, legally or by convention, that justifies the wholesale deployment of tens of thousands of publicly paid, armed and kitted officers, who should be securing the general space for all citizens to pass through, to certain individuals, including in some cases known criminals, and who use them almost like personal chattel. Some individuals have over fifteen mobile policemen guarding their residences and factories, separate from the ones who follow them about on a 24/7 basis.

Nor are we told the criteria for such deployment. Today we have armed policemen (public officers) attached 24/7 to politicians, religious leaders (especially Christian), bankers, wealthy entrepreneurs, musicians, comedians, socialites, actors, 419ners, foreigners and the like, and to add insult to injury, they register their cars with police numbers; and even though the IG has recently ordered a stop to this practice, it still goes on. Where do they get their impunity?

These escorts are everywhere, at social events, to pick people up at airports, at homes, to take their children to school, in their offices and work places and the like, looking less like officers of the law and more like bouncers and bodyguards. I was in court once when a lawyer entered the courtroom with his armed escort trailing behind. Incredible! Indeed, all this flurry of activity and noise creates the impression of more insecurity than there actually is. And all this has happened under our so called democracy where everyone is supposedly equal under the law. What if every citizen insisted on having personal police protection? And this pattern of police usage is a relatively recent phenomena, becoming the nuisance it now is in the past ten or so years.

Apart from anything else, escort duty puts a target on every policeman’s back. It is a strange and careless way of deploying police, and the number who have been killed on such duties is clear evidence of that. But we don’t seem to appreciate this fact, and over time these escorts are seen less as responsible police officers with authority to enforce the law and more as mere lackeys. Recall the response of a prominent citizen who had three of his police escorts shot dead in Anambra State while he was hosting a town hall meeting. His explanation of what he thought when he heard the shots fired outside is instructive. According to him, when he heard the shots he thought it was his police escorts celebrating some event outside by shooting into the air. To even think that of police officers! Clearly, he no longer saw them as police officers charged to uphold the law otherwise such a thought would never have occurred to him. They were his ‘boys’, nothing more. This is what is happening up and down the line, the gradual erosion of police values.

I am aware that all over the world, usually by convention, a certain unique set of public officers is entitled to police protection 24/7, and they are relatively small in number, so as not to deplete the main force, and specially trained in VIP protection, and even if there is no law setting this out (except, for instance, in the United States where the law specifically places on the secret service the duty of protecting the president, vice-president and presidential candidates), there are certain criteria by which normal society accepts the need for close protection of this category of public officials. The first set are those persons whose incapacitation (say during an attack by terrorists or during an attempted coup d’etat) would seriously affect the functioning of the state and the level of public anxiety, thereby impinging on national security. Such individuals are the chief executives of the country, i.e., the president, the vice president, the governors and the deputy governors. Following them would be those persons who, in the unlikely event of our losing both president/governor and vice president/governor, would temporarily take over the reins of power until a fresh election can be held, that is, the senate president/speaker NASS, and the speakers at the state level. Added to these would be the presidential and vice presidential candidates in an approaching election. A firm line must be drawn under this very exclusive group. The next category that convention has over the decades recognized as deserving of close protection by way of an armed orderly is that of the judges of the superior courts of record, that is the justices of the supreme and appeal courts, and the judges of the various high courts. Indeed, in saner times, they were virtually the only people in society you saw with armed police orderlies. That is understandable. Judges are involved in the resolution of complex and often rancorous disputes and their protection was and is viewed as important indeed. Ambassadors are entitled to protection also. The third and most fluid group are those citizens involved in serious criminal matters, and whose lives might be in danger due to their role as informants or witnesses and where there is evidence of a specific threat to their lives. In recent times in fact, the law of criminal procedure has been expanded to include this class under witness protection provisions.

Again I will stress that there is no law backing this convention, just practice and common sense. We all recall how the IG could withdraw police escorts from the speaker of the NASS and sometimes even governors, and we all remember the hilarious sight of the then speaker having to scale the gate of the national assembly to gain entrance when he had been locked out and his escorts withdrawn. Of course he did not go to court to challenge the IG’s action because he knew he had no cause of action.

Sadly, as the wheels have come off society, and typical of us, we have made a mockery of convention and instead abused it. We now have private citizens escorted by fully armed police officers, speaking glibly about their “convoys” as if they hold military commands, and generally disturbing the peace with sirens and flashing lights. A convoy is described in the Oxford dictionary as a group of ships or vehicles travelling together, typically one accompanied by armed troops, warships or other vehicles for protection. But that is how ridiculous things have become.

But as I have noted, what was a common sense convention has been rudely abused, costing us seriously in terms of police capacity to deal with our grave security problems, and generally enforce the law. In fact, one of the first issues that the past three presidential committees on police reform highlighted was the abuse of the VIP protection process. And these committees were headed by former inspector generals! Sadly that observation has been ignored. And I recall that in 2016, during a courtesy visit by the then IG to state house, President Muhammadu Buhari expressed his concern about the abuse of VIP protection, and the IG promised to look into it. I guess the president assumed it had indeed been looked into, but someone should tell him it’s worse than ever now, and at a time when the nation needs all its security assets in the right places in the fight to restore peace.

Some officers should not be allowed to escape their responsibilities in law enforcement work by hiding behind escort duties while their mates are out on the beat confronting criminals and trying to manage understaffed police stations. It’s bad for morale, and when private citizens, with police support, are allowed to blare sirens and flash lights, it erodes police authority. You can see that policemen on stop and search duties do not even attempt to stop and check such blaring vehicles when they pass by, even though they are entitled by law to find out who is in them, what their mission is, and whether they are law abiding citizens. Rather than confront them, however, they salute and wave them past. Am I not supported in my views when each new IG at the beginning of his tenure vows to withdraw police escorts, claiming that they undermine police effectiveness, but then tamely withdraws into his shell, being unable to enforce his vow? The pushback must be fierce and the heart of the IG too weak to withstand it. I don’t want to suggest that the money involved is too much of a counterveiling influence also.

The same former IG who visited the president noted not too long ago that the main job of the police was to police the general space so that ALL citizens would enjoy a relative absence of fear, rather than protecting a privileged few at the expense of public safety and costs. And on what basis and by what authority does a government agency expend public resources for private benefit? That is a clear form of corruption and abuse of office! And what of the hundreds of officers who have died in the course of protecting the privileged, dying as human shields as if no value is placed on their lives? Do we even recall the nine policemen who died in an ambush while escorting the governor of a state wracked by terrorism as he travelled between towns? Would it not have been more sensible to send drones and patrols ahead of his motorcade to ensure the route was safe before sacrificing those poor men as human shields? Yes, I know, some police officers lobby for the seemingly cushy job of escort, feeding fat at parties, lazing through the day when their principal does not move (I have seen so many of them in estates such as Osbourne, Banana Island, Ikoyi and Lekki, especially at the weekends when their ogas are resting at home, lazing about in slippers and wearing those ghastly police tee-shirts with the ridiculous inscriptions), when their colleagues are on real duty and on long shifts, and having the cost of their uniforms, children’s school fees and medical bills covered by their principal. And we suspect that money changes hands for these deployments, but where that money ends up we cannot say. And although the Constitution established a police service whose job is primarily law enforcement, not an escort service, the police as an entity is slowly but surely losing its authority and its ethos. The individual police officer today, especially of the junior ranks, lacks the confidence to carry out his job due to the failure of his leadership. When I was growing up in Lagos in the sixties, a single police officer could stop a brawl on Lagos Island, his mere presence, his bearing, his uniform and his baton being sufficient to inspire compliance of his order. Today, a police officer finds it difficult to even effect an arrest, even if he is holding an assault rifle.

One further disturbing element of this police escort/protection nonsense, apart from the fact that it is not really law enforcement work, is that more and more, the police officers on escort duty are conflicted as to loyalty. Does he owe his loyalty to his benefactor, or to the state and the ordinary citizen? If he is on escort duty and he sees a crime being committed along the route, what would he do? The way things are, and I’ve interviewed a few of them, he would most likely get his current master away to safety rather than intervene to stop the crime, yet that is the primary duty of a police officer. Indeed, this has happened numerous times. There are numerous reports where the police officers deployed to protect a residence stay put and do nothing when the people in the house next door are being robbed and shouting for help.

The escort breaks traffic laws, shows complete disregard for other road users, uses threats and assaults and other illegal tactics, such as horse whips, to force his oga’s convoy to the front of any traffic situation, often creating three lanes where there should be only two, forcing ordinary drivers almost onto the shoulder or off the road, drives through red lights and generally behaves like a political thug. He does this because that is how he sees his deployment, to protect his principal even at the expense of his main function. This is disgraceful and should be brought to an end. Officers of the national police should not be allowed to behave in this manner. There is no provision in any of our statute books that justifies or excuses this kind of behavior, and it is tragic to see those who are supposed to enforce the law being the principal actors in this scandalous illegality. No wonder the police are despised by the general public. They have lost all their self-respect and have forgotten their main duties. Do we recall the case of the despicable senator who assaulted a shop girl while his police orderly, a sergeant no less, stood helplessly by?

Their respect has been further diminished by the menial things they are compelled to do by their new masters. The female officer whose ordeal I narrated above was ordered to carry out domestic chores by her professor principal and her refusal earned her a savage beating. Why does a professor merit an orderly in any event? We’ve seen police officers carrying hand bags and suitcases, serving food at social events, holding umbrellas for foreigners, escorting kids to school and generally being treated like menial servants. And yet the IG tells us to respect police officers when we come in contact with them. But his own force treats them like indentured labourers. When the police service starts to treat its own men and women, especially the junior officers, with respect and regard, the public will follow suit.

Now, I am aware that at some time in the past, the police tried to formalize the VIP protection process by establishing a VIP protection unit in the force. These men were properly trained in VIP protection techniques, unlike the rag tag crowd today, and they were clearly marked out by the distinctive blue berets they wore. They were limited in number and followed the conventional rules of providing VIP protection to an exclusive few. But as is typical in many things we do, the system has barreled out of control, and a majority of the over one hundred thousand escorts today are from the once dreaded mobile police force, those that wear the green berets and who were set up essentially as an anti-riot squad to ensure public order and restore peace when there was a breakdown. When I was in university in the 1970s, the decade of real, intense student protests, fear of the mobile police, or mopol, was the beginning of wisdom. Once they arrived on scene you knew it was just a matter of time before we were sent scampering back to our hostels. There were less street fights and disorder then because the mopol, launched from their nearest squadron, were swiftly on the scene and ruthlessly restoring order. Indeed, they were our public order police. Today, due to the fact that their number and capacity has been depleted, largely by protection duty and consequent neglect, violent street fights between road transport union factions, street gangs and cultists, where guns and machetes are freely used, go on for hours, usually with fatalities, until the combatants themselves are exhausted, and causing major disruption of normal activity. And yet there is no sign whatsoever of the mobile police.

Sometimes, it is the police that even make the offer of armed protection. I know of one case where a wealthy man who had just moved into the neighbourhood was approached by the DPO and offered escorts. When I was running the Lagos State Security Trust Fund, the then commissioner of police on visiting my house, offered me two policemen for guard duty and two as escorts. I politely declined, first because I’ve never believed in the idea, but secondly because I thought it would send a bad signal to those I was trying to raise donor funds from.

The wholesale deployment of armed police officers as VIP protection officers and escorts can never substitute for real law enforcement. Today the police are a reactive force, becoming ever weaker in prevention and investigation of crimes. It is as if the police authorities, by giving out over a third of the force to private persons, have outsourced the welfare of these officers since such beneficiaries will have to take on a lot of the kitting and personal needs of the officers. I’m sure that this system, not covered by any regulations determining criteria or number, has become so unwieldy (it is unlikely that the IG knows exactly how many of his men are currently on escort/protection duty) that the prospect of reabsorbing them into the force scares the pants of the leadership. Better to just let it roll on since it is unlikely that those with oversight duties over the police, themselves being major beneficiaries of the out-of-control system, are likely to ask hard questions.

In concluding, I will recommend that this whole system be reviewed and returned to a measure of sanity. There must be clear regulations as to who is entitled to such protection, the maximum number of police officers to be involved, the costs and the conduct of such officers. If the current administration can’t do it, the next one should make it a priority. We should not continue like this where we cannot make a distinction between a genuine emergency siren and one that is being blared by a private citizen. That is crazy! It’s time to restore the police to its previous standard if we want a safe and sane society.

Final word, perhaps the civil defence corps could be charged with such duties as VIP and private facility protection, with specified charges/fees that will go into the treasury, so that the police can get back to their traditional duties.

Arthur Worrey is a former Lagos State Director of Public Prosecutions