Cultural Correlates to Community Policing in Disoriented Society: The Case of Isu-Ebonyi Folks of South Eastern Nigeria

Abstract

Disparate formal policing bodies in Nigeria merged in 1930 to form a monolithic Nigeria police force. Taking cue from all the post independence constitutions, section 214, CFRN 1999, provides for the Nigerian police force and “…no other police force shall be established for the federation or any party thereof”. The import is a solitary body to police the entire country. Policing involves ethical and legitimate efforts to secure the people’s lives and property in a defined territory. But the Nigerian police force has not been able to achieve this overall security mandate leading to vociferous calls for police reforms. In that direction, the then president, Olusegun Obasanjo launched the community policing plan for Nigeria in 2004. Following the approval, the Nigerian police force drew up a plan specifying five target areas for reforms. One of the areas is functional partnership between the police and the communities’ christened community policing. Nearly twenty (20) years after, policing has worsened rather than improved. This paper is a search for the impediments to community policing in rural Nigeria. It takes an ethnographic approach analyzing behavioral texts and focus-group discussion with the indigenous Isu-Ebonyi folks of south eastern Nigeria. It is found that the people are disoriented as their normative values are disintegrated and psyche disfigured by emergent oddities perpetuated before and by timorous and unethical police officers in the folks own community. The result is disillusionment, distrust, and blasé attitude to state institutions. The study recommends cultural training for the police to understand the normative values of the task environment and use the knowledge to win support for community policing.