The recent viral video of a clash between some officers of the Nigerian Customs Service(NCS) and the Vehicle Inspection Officers (VIOs) brings to the fore again the spate of shameful displays of indiscipline within the supposed disciplined services.
In this video, officers of the two agencies were seen freely exchanging blows, using sticks and other dangerous objects in a fight that had civilians trying to separate them. Gunshots were even fired in the course of the melee.
Police personnel were later seen coming to separate the scuffle. While the cause of the fight remains unclear, the fact that these officers could throw caution to the wind and engage in such a shameful act tells a lot about the nature of the security operatives.
But this shameful show isn’t new. Such acts have been going on for years. Recently we saw the scuffle between staff of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and Department of State Services (DSS) in Lagos over office space.
We have also seen videos of open clashes between military personnel and police officers over superiority. Videos of persons within the same outfit have also been replete.
What is troubling is that these shameful clashes, which most times are gruesome, are not directly related to addressing criminality acts. They are always about ego tussles and an attempt to show which security agency is superior.
When will such a public display of crass indiscipline stop? How can a house divided against itself stand?
Interagency battles have been way too embarrassing to say the least.
This is more so that these are persons who ought to be standards of public discipline and keepers of sanity. But what we see are men in uniform exhibiting utter abhorrent behaviors, fit for thugs and the undisciplined. A most undignifying ambassadors of their establishments.
There are bound to be rifts and disagreements among agencies. But one would expect that it would be more about professional clashes not ego tripping.
If at all there are such disagreements, one would expect that such should be handled in- house and not in public. And definitely not through violence which exposes civilians to risks. We have suffered enough needless killing of civilians by the reckless attitude of security agencies than to keep having people they should be protecting be easily exposed to such dangerous behavior by security personnel.
Clearly, in our opinion, this behavior calls for lots of concern as this has gone unabated for years. Yes, these are low level officers. But it reflects on the quality of orientation and perhaps training they have received. We expect that these officers would be punished for bringing disgrace and disrepute to their establishment. But we expect that such shouldn’t have happened in the first place. With the repeated occurrence of such disgraceful acts, we are left to wonder about the quality of training that goes on in these establishments.
We also believe that there is a need to revisit the way and manner personnel are recruited. We are of the view that recruitment into the security establishments ought to be based on merit and other outlined qualifications. Anything outside these would lead to the falling standards we decry today.
Evidently, not everyone is fit to wear uniforms. And even for those who choose to wear it out of patriotism, the need to provide them the right orientation is very essential.
It is sad enough that the security agencies are having to battle many acts of criminality on different fronts. That our security agencies are stretched thin is not in doubt. We commend them for the work they do. But we do believe that these avoidable inter- agency squabbles shouldn’t occur.
We urge the heads of the security agencies to pay close attention to this issue and ensure that it does not occur. Besides the security risk such scuffles pose to the citizens, it diminishes the respect for the uniform. This we cannot afford to have in these trying times.
