OPEN LETTER TO PRESIDENT BUHARI ON HOW TO CRASH THE VIOLENT CRIMES RATE IN NIGERIA AND STAMP OUT BANDITRY AND KIDNAPPING.

BY BUNMI AWOYEMI, Ph.D

Malcolm Gladwell discussed the theory of coupling when it comes to crime prevention, detection and reduction in his latest book, “Talking To Strangers.” Coupling in crime prevention means that in a particular state within a country, certain types of crime like violent crimes, gang wars, hard drugs cartels, gun crimes, etc, are often concentrated in few identifiable neighborhoods.

The statistics may say armed robbery in that state is 10 times the national average. But, by the time you study the statistics closer, you will discover that only 3 or 4 streets are responsible for 90% of such crimes.

So, what some states did was to copy what Kansas city did which was more aggressively patrolling the crime hotspots and conducting random searches of suspicious vehicles. When this was done in Kansas gun crimes crashed by more than 50% within a very short time.

It is a waste of resources to run patrols blindly. Focus these patrols and searches on crime hotspots.

This is what we need to do in Nigeria.

1. End useless tinted permit stops and searches by traffic police forthwith.
2. Withdraw policemen from VIPs.

3. Concentrate most of the police and army patrols as well as random stops and searches on violent crimes hotspots notorious for kidnapping, terrorism, armed robbery and other types of violent crimes.

4. Retool and retrain the internal police and army anti-corruption unit and let most of their personnel police the policemen who will be manning these violent crime hotspots.

5. Put in place a bonus and rapid promotion regime for rewarding policemen and army officers in these violent crime hotspots based on how many guns and ammunition they recover, how many armed robbers, kidnappers and terrorists they apprehend. That way promotions will no longer be lock-stepped promotions based on how long you have been a police officer but rather on valour and courage displayed and based on your level of productivity.

6. Keep the land borders with our West African neighbors shut. Most of the banditry, kidnapping being experienced in these hotspots are fueled by the influx of terrorists, bandits and weapons from these countries via our land borders. Since the borders were shut in July, violent crimes have reduced exponentially in these crime hotspots.

7. 36 patrol and weaponized helicopters should be acquired immediately by the FG and handed over to an air survellience interstate highways team drawn from the police and army and who should patrol the forests around these notorious interstate highways with a marching order to smoke out the bandits from their hideouts.

8. Fix bad Federal Highways which have allowed these violent criminals to operate with reckless abandon because they know that if a portion of a road is bad motorists and transporters would be forced to drive slowly. The FG must act fast on this. Ordinary Nigerians should not be made to become sitting ducks for easy attacks, while politicians use heavily armed escorts and siren to navigate these roads.

9. Ban your ministers from using sirens on our federal highways. They are there to serve the citizens not oppress them. They must be forced to go through traffic induced by bad roads like the ordinary citizens so they can know where the shoe is pinching. This is how they can take a keen interest in looking for solutions to the problems of bad roads which they will encounter when traveling on these roads. Sirens allow them to bypass other road users. While the masses may spend 5 hours in traffic on a federal highway, the minister may not spend up to 30 minutes in the same traffic. This is very wrong.

10. Hiring thousands of additional police officers and army officers is good, but only if numbers 1 to 9 of my recommendations are executed. As you must have seen from my analysis, qualitative and targeted policing is what we need not quantitative and blind policing.