Prof. Chidi Odinkalu on the Crisis of Post-Colonial Nigeria | State Police, Violence & the Judiciary

Yeah, it's crazy because I feel like we, as a country, the solutions may even seem to be worse than the problem.

Because the way you spelled it out now, I didn't even think about it like this, to be honest.

I mean, it speaks to the obvious knowledge and wisdom you have, because I didn't think this deep into...

How would this even work? Like, how would you have a state police? So, for example, my own concept just stopped at, if you had a state police under Iwike, for example, compare and contrast that with a state police under an Alex Oti.

Obviously, those two governors are very different.

And in my own opinion, I feel like a state police under an Alex Oti would be completely different from a state police under Governor Iwike when he was governor.

And you could apply the same to other aggressive governments, like maybe Uzo Demande, or others in the north, or wherever.

So I feel like, as a people, and it goes back to your initial point, as a people, perhaps we also have to start getting involved more and more, because the legitimacy, when it comes to policing, we have to demand it.

So we have to be more involved in electing better governors, electing better presidents, because...

At some point, we have to just leave this model of policing we have and move to a different model because we can't keep on, this whole violence, this whole insecurity can't keep on just going on and on and on.

I don't know if it gets, because at some point, something has to change.

But isn't this precisely the problem? We have so normalized abnormality in terms of our neural processes that even when it hits us on the bridge of the nose, we don't recognize it.

Now, look at it this way.

Think about the United Kingdom, right? You have lots of mayoralities now.

You have a mayor of London.

You have Manchester, Liverpool, and all of that.

And then people, somebody comes and tells you, oh, you know, what Greater Manchester Police does depends, the extent of its powers and its brutality depends on Andy Burnham.

And the extent, the reach of civility, otherwise, of the Greater London Police depends on the bridge of the nose of Lord Khan,

right?

You say, are you okay?

Yes.

Correct? Yes.

Precisely.

Now, but in Nigeria we've normalized that.

Exactly, yeah.