The Antidote For Incessant Nefarious Activities In Nigeria

By Babalola Wasiu

According to structural functionalist school of thought, society is studied just like a biological being. To biologists, a defect in one part of the body can lead to total paralysis of the whole body system due to the synergetic interdependence and interrelation of the parts of the body.

Drawing an analogy from this, the structural functionalist school of thought believes that, the society as a system comprises sub-systems like Family sub-system, Economic sub-system and Social sub-system just to mention a few. These entire sub-systems make up the society. The malfunction in any one of these sub-systems can make the society to be in disarray. To forestall this from happening, adequate attention has to be given to all sub-systems for the peaceful continuity of the society.

It is apparent that the social sub-system in some parts of the country has been bewildered with the uproar scourge of various nefarious activities ranging from kidnapping either for economic benefit or rituals, causing incessant social unrest.

The devilish act of these perpetrators in Nigeria has caused unaccountably irredeemable havocs to the lives of many. The panic that it inflicts on Nigerian’s psyche is probably more intense than what Nigerians, who experienced the post independence civil war felt. Virtually, all states of the federation are sitting on a keg of gun powder in this regard!

Meanwhile, governments’ efforts across the board to uproot these ungodly acts in the nooks and crannies of our society are scored high. This of course leads many states in Nigeria to have unsleeping moment on the security consciousness for day-to-day preventive measures against criminal tendencies in Nigeria.

But the fact still lies on the need for government to take a look into individualistic approach by introducing effective community policing.

Community policing is anchored on a systematic relationship between the police and the entire citizenry. It is a proactive philosophy that promotes solving problems that are either criminal in nature which can affect the quality of life, or increase citizens’ fear of crime. A problem-solving policing that is proactive with the community as the cornerstone of policing objective needs to be introduced.

Although community policing is not a new phenomenon in Nigeria, the Nigeria Police in 2004 embraced community policing as a pragmatic approach to police reforms but the question is how effective is it?

A sincere and effective community policing requires successful implementation of these essential and complementary components or operational strategies like:

1. Community Partnership: This has to do with establishing and maintaining mutual trust between citizens of a community and the police. The fear of citizenry to be indicted or being interrogated more than necessary in the course of reporting a crime to police must be eliminated.  This can only be achieved through constant enlightenment on media so that, the perception of the citizenry to police in reporting crime would be positive.
2. Problem Solving: This requires a lot more thoughtful, technical know-how and action. In full partnership, the communities residents identify the problems that they feel are most threatening to their safety and well-being. Those areas of concern then become priorities for police intervention. After all, the deviants are the product of society at large, living within the society; hence, they can best be identified by the people of the society.

The modality to the successful implementation of the problem solving strategy lies with the Police. The Police need a lot to do on the aspect of equipping the citizenry on the necessary knowledge of being vigilant, detective, protective and defensive on criminal tendency matters.  How would they go about this? By simply organising unit based workshops in each local government of the state. Through this, all what the civilians are supposed to know on security matters would be drummed to their ears.

In Nigeria of today, security consciousness is everybody’s business. To every school, religious houses, markets, shopping complexes, hotels, restaurants and sporting arenas, issue of security and personal safety should be taken more seriously these days by working with both the government and security agencies in promptly reporting any person with suspicious activities or unusual gatherings that may compromise security. Now is the time for everybody irrespective of their status in the society to wake up to the challenge. Any delay could be dangerous, procrastination, they say, is the thief of time.