State Police, a royal apparel to be given to swine

By Otuedon Vincent E.

If you must give royal apparel to a swine, you must first change its culture, lest he takes it back to the mud. While state police has become inevitable in tackling the nation’s security challenges, we must accept the fact that though we have journeyed about sixty-six years into our independence, we still have not walked far from our primordial sentiments that clog the wheels of our national development. And this is the fallout of the defeatist approach to human rights of the 1960 Constitution and the subsequent Constitution till date which has, in no small measure, impeded our national peace, national unity, and national integration.

We must admit our ignorance of the purports of the human rights provisions as a nation. Human rights declaration of 1948, by the United Nation, was a declaration of tools or instrument for global peace and for member nations tools or instrument of national peace, national unity and national integration, not just a defense mechanism. This bundle of rights was to be used to school humanity from primordial sentiments such as racism, tribalism, religious extremism etc that bedeviled the world at the time into global citizenship.

The methodology for realizing the objective (global peace} was education of Citizens of these rights, upon adoption. The United Nations General Assembly Resolution 217A of 10th December, 1948 states that ….. whereas a common understanding of these rights and freedom is of the greatest importance for the full realization of this pledge. Now, therefore THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY proclaims THESE UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS as a common standard of achievement for all people and all nations, to the end that every individual and every organ of society, keeping this declaration constantly in mind, shall strive by teaching and education to promote respect for this rights and freedoms ….. “.

Whereas Art 25 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples Right stated succinctly that “states parties to the present Charter shall have the duty to promote and ensure through teaching and education and publication, the respect of these rights and freedom contained in the present Charter and to see to it that these freedoms and rights as well as corresponding obligations and duties are understood.”

The developed nations that have become our model of state today, took home these instructions of the UN and came up with a national policy on human rights education and included them in their school curriculum with a clear and definite course objective. And eventually schooled their citizens from dehumanizing and degrading primordial sentiments into statesmanship or global citizenship that enabled state or national policies to run effortlessly.

On the other hand, we missed it when in 1958 preparatory to Nigeria’s independence, when the Willik Commission of Enquiry was set up to attend to the fears of the minorities, one of its recommendations was the inclusion of human rights in the 1960 Constitution to allay the fears of minorities. Therefore, allaying the fear of minorities or to protect or defend the interest of minorities or the oppressed became the basis for including this potent state tools into the 1960 constitution and subsequent Constitution till date.

This misconception of this bundle of rights has affected the approach of government, human rights activists and even legal profession to these rights, as we continue to maintain the defeatist approach of defending and protecting when we were to use the tools for: nation building, national peace, national unity, national integration, springboard for citizens reformation and global citizenship.

It is therefore, a risky endeavor to place weapons in the hands of a people plagued with divisive primordial sentiments under the guise of state police without a corresponding programme of mental reformation. They are likely to degenerate into palace guards doing only the bidding of their masters. Until the swine undergoes mental reformation, the royal apparel is not safe in its hands.

It is on this note that, we recommend that preparatory to the migration to the state policing, Chapter IV of the 1999 Constitution be amended to include mandatory provision for human rights education across all educational institutions; both formal and informal. That is, it should not be limited to formal educational institutions alone but also institutions responsible for the emergence of traditional and religious leaders.There must be a DEFINITE national policy on human rights education to include human rights education in our school curriculum to school the citizens out of their primordial sentiments into full statesmanship and global citizenship; a deliberate human rights education across the nation’s institutions, agencies and parastatal with a definite and clear objective of nation building, national peace, national unity, national integration and citizen reformation.

In the human rights provisions, the lawyers have tools to defend their clients, the judges have tools to uphold justice but much more than that the human rights provisions are for national peace, national unity, national integration, citizens transformation and reformation.

We need these objectives clear enough, vigorously and collectively pursued by all institutions; government, traditional and religion leaders otherwise state police may become another national mistake.

Otuedon Vincent E, is a Legal Practitioner and President, Liberty Harbingers Network.