Attack on Force HQ and reality of porous police

THE ease with which the perpetrators of the Thursday’s bomb attack on the nation’s Force Headquarters, Abuja, exe-cuted their onslaught is a confirmation of the porous outlook of the Nigeria Police.

Since October 1, 2010 when there was an explo-sion close to the Eagle Square, venue of the 50th anniversary of the nation, which claimed over a dozen lives, bombing, hitherto a rarity in the country, has become commonplace.

There were the New Year’s eve attacks in Abuja and Jos, as well as the May 29 explosion at Zuba, a suburb of the Federal Capital City. Also, almost on a daily basis, there have been attacks by Boko Haram in Borno State, without the police being able to check the menace, despite promising on each occasion to leave no stone unturned in appre-hending the perpetrators. What all these boil down to is that the security system in the country leaves much to be desired.

Going by the police account of Thursday’s attack, the bomber was able to access the police headquarters on the chase of the Inspector General’s convoy, before being detected by a policeman, who asked him to move his car somewhere else.

However, despite being detected and accosted, the police, with all the bomb disposal unit and all the arsenals at their beck and call, could neither detect the bomb nor stop it from detonating. This shows that the police headquarters was as unsafe as any part of the country.

So, if the Nigeria Police could not protect them-selves, will the nation not be expecting too much from them to protect the whole nation? If the Inspector General of Police (IGP) could claim he was unsafe, even at the police head-quarters, is anyone safe anywhere in the country?

Boko Haram has claimed responsibility for the attack. This undoub-tedly is its reaction to the statement by the IG, Hafiz Ringim, three days ago, that the days of the group were numbered. But with the attack, it seems Boko Haram has taken the battle to the doorstep of the police.

According to Boko Haram’s spokesman, Usman Alzawahiri, “we are behind it (the bomb blast) and we are going to attack the entire North and other parts of the country, including the capital, Abuja.”

He aded that some Boko Haram personnel had just returned from Somalia and had been scattered around the northern part of the country for the purpose of attacking different parts of the North.

What this means is that the group has extended its battle beyond the boun-daries of Borno State, where it had been operating for sometime, to the whole of the North.

The question does arise, if the police could not tackle Boko Haram when it was operating in just one state, will the police be able to stop the group now that it claimed it had spread to 19 states and Abuja?

From all indications, policing the country is too much a task for the Nigeria Police as currently consti-tuted. If there will be safety and a sense of security in this country, the police have to be helped. The police have to be better equipped to meet up with the requirement of policing a humongous society like Nigeria.

Then the police too have to be more proactive in their operations. At the moment, what the police do is to wait for a calamity to occur before scurrying to find a solution. The police have to do more of information gathering with the purpose of stopping bomb attacks before they take place.

To many Nigerians, the response of the police to bomb attacks on Nigerians has been anything but encouraging, probably because the leadership of the police had been shielded from such attacks. But now that the attackers have taken the fight to the doorstep of the police, officers and men of the Nigeria Police will have to be more alive to their responsibility of protecting the people before the whole country becomes a deadly mine for everyone.

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