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Private Security Companies And Crime Prevention
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In addition to earlier mentioned criminal activities, today law and order also pose serious
security challenges in the country. According to Sunday Ehindaro, the former Inspector General
of Police, “perhaps the most potent threat to national security of any country is crimeâ€
(Dambazau, 2007: 152). This statement is also in line with the report of the Economic
Intelligence Unit (EIU) in a survey called “RISKWIRE†which concluded that,
Nigeria
is an insecure environment for commercial operations. Security risk
arises at three levels. The first comes from rising violent crime (from)
simple armed robbery (to) carjacking and violent attacks....Second,
companies can be subjected to direct attack or blackmail...facilities
can be vandalized and staff kidnapped. Third, incidences of
inter-communal violence have risen. Nigeria’s ill equipped police force .
has been ineffective in stemming the crime wave. (Dambazau, 2007: 53).
Therefore,
the ineffectiveness of the Nigeria police and the concern of Nigerians
for security led to the emergence of guards and private security
companies in the country to augment the activities of the security
agencies and work in line with the laid down rules and regulations. Just
like the vigilante, private security companies are also an informal
arrangement to keep with the pace of rising crime rate in Nigeria.
However,
as is the case in all countries, the citizens of Nigeria are highly
concerned about their security and this concern has been expressed
through the growth of Private Security Companies (PSCs). The last decade
has seen a proliferation of PSCs in a country of about 140 million
people (Census, 2006). The presence of these companies is conspicuous in
the premises of both private and public sector organizations. This is
in spite of the fact that in both urban and rural areas, security
matters are largely in the hands of private actors than in those of the
state. Thus, the function of private security companies was handled by
the Nigeria immigration service in the Federal Ministry of Interior.
Until 1st September, 2005 when the then Minister of Internal Affairs
handed over all documents of private guard companies to the Nigeria
Security and Civil Defense Corps (NSCDC, 2009).
There are two
principal landmarks in the regulation of PSCs in Nigeria. The first is
the enactment and approval for creation of PSCs on 15th December 1986.
This law was cited as Act No 43 and consolidated under the laws of the
Federation of Nigeria 1990 in chapter 367. The second is the handover
from the Nigeria immigration service to Nigeria civil defense corps
cited currently as chapter 30 in Private Guard Companies (PGC) Act (Laws
of the Federation of Nigeria, 2004). This law is specifically enacted
for the “regulation and licensing of private guard companies which must
be wholly owned by Nigerians and other matters-ancillary thereto†(PGCs
Act, Cap367, 1990).
Finally, the perception of ineffective policing
and rising crime gave impetus to the emergence of a plethora of
non-state policing groups (Olaniyi, 2005). The state has shared its
security responsibility with a variety of non-political organizations
including vigilante groups, religious vigilante, ethnic militias and
private security guards.
Based on the above and most especially
considering its growing importance, the activities of the PSCs
necessarily became a subject of study. This has led the researcher to
the choice of private security companies and crime prevention in Nigeria
with Niger state as a case study.
1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
Law,
order and security were maintained in the pre-colonial societies
through thorough socialization of members of the society using peer
group, age grade and religious institutions (Ogunbameru and Rotimi,
2006). Thus, violators of societal norms, customs, and traditions of
various communal groups faced serious sanctions which ranged from
ostracizing, payment of reparation and purification and consequently the
performing of cleansing rituals (Igbo, 2007). For instance in Niger
state, criminals pay for their crimes through serving various punishment
such as digging of dungeons, working in the Emir’s farm, quarrying, and
in cases which involve witchcraft and murder, banishment or ninety (90)
days cleansing fast was observed as reparation (Idrees and Ochefu,
2002). The occurrence of these crimes was often at a lower rate because
these sanctions also helped in inducing fear into the people on the
negative consequences of committing crime in the society.
These roles
changed during the colonial era following the introduction of formal
social control. The Native Authority (NA) police assumed the role of
maintaining law, order and security, while the citizens simply became
on-lookers because community security was seen as the responsibility of
the government. At this point, insecurity also started growing due to
the nature of native administration. This is because Nationalist
activities were seen and conceived of as an attack on the colonialists
(Kuna, 1999). Therefore, the brutality of the NA police became
instrumental to the growth of the nationalist movement at this time in
the society.
During the post-colonial era, especially after the civil
war in Nigeria, the activities of criminals grew almost out of hand as a
result of the proliferation of firearms which were found in all nooks
and crannies of the country. This hastened the growth of crime on the
one hand, and also brought about the need to further secure the urban
communities where robbery and the nefarious acts of criminals were
frequent. Therefore, urban areas like Lagos, Ibadan, Enugu, and Kano
started having neighborhood guards due to the inefficiency of the police
(Dambazau, 2007; Igbo, 2007)
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