Nigeria: North and south – one country but different laws

When it comes to ensuring fairness, it is dangerous to stick your head in the sand. With the recent pronouncement on Cross River’s Green Police, we might be playing the ostrich.

The Federal Government has declared the Green Police – an outfit inaugurated by the Cross River State government to protect the environment and create jobs – as illegal. But nothing has been heard, recently, on the legality or illegality of the Sharia Police, Hisbah, which holds sway in the north.

While declaring the Green Police illegal, the state commissioner of police, Mr. Jimoh Obi-Ozeh, quoted Section 214 of the constitution which says that there should be no other police force in the country except the Nigerian Police Force (NPF). This is absolutely correct!

But this section of the constitution applies more to the Sharia Police, and less to the Green Police. Governor Ayade’s initiative – which is currently paying unemployed youths over 25,000 naira monthly — ought not to be called a police, in the first place. (It can continue to do its job, in a modified way, without having the police appendage to its name.)

The Cross River State government inaugurated the Green Police to complement the efforts of the Forestry Commission and the state government in implementing the state’s forest laws. The state government believes this initiative would create jobs for its teeming population of youths. It has actually done this.

The governor’s background in the environment might have spurred him into inaugurating this so-called ‘police force’. There is no doubt that the illegal felling of trees reduce government’s revenue and impacts negatively on the environment. But the state commissioner of police doesn’t agree that these justify the existence of the Green Police. Probably, he thinks the underfunded NPF can effectively do this job without any assistance.

But the real alternative police is sprawling across the north.

While not advocating that people should engage in activities that might be offensive to people of other faiths, the process of checking these irritations needs to be interrogated.

A few days ago, in Jigawa, the Sharia Police arrested 34 persons and confiscated hundreds of bottles of beer. The state commandant of Sharia Police, Mallam Sa’idu Aliyu, told newsmen that the Hisbah will continue to fight immorality.

Also, sometime in April, in Kano, the Sharia Police arrested some women for engaging in immoral acts. In fact, they charge and prosecute people for engaging in Sharia related offences.

And such offences could include the consumption of alcohol in public, smoking of marijuana, romancing a person who might not be your legal spouse in public.

But no one in government, in recent times, has talked about the legality or illegality of these acts, even after Mr. Aliyu gave a ‘press conference’.

It is not clear how much job the Sharia Police has created or how much it pays its members. But the possible economic transformation of Governor Ben Ayade’s scheme is not in doubt. Yet, the state commissioner of police wants it to be shut down.

The state commissioner of police ought to call for an amendment of the state law guiding the Green Police, instead of using the constitution as a guise in asking for its crackdown. This amendment should include curbing the potential excesses of the marshals, who make up the Green Police.

Initiatives such as the Green Police could earn Nigeria laurels on the environment, if it is properly managed. (The president’s recent visit to Morocco shows he is passionate about the environment.)

But there remains one question on some people’s lips: Does the constitution apply to the Hisbah? If it doesn’t, why should it apply to the Green Police?