Emmanuel C. Onyeozili Department of Criminal Justice University of Maryland Eastern Shore
Abstract
This paper traces the history of colonial social control and Policing in Nigeria, and also reviews the literature and examines how colonialism demonized, discredited, and supplanted the traditional system of policing. It establishes that in place of the old (traditional) system, colonialism imposed a new (but alien) militarized policing geared toward the colonial needs of political oppression and economic exploitation without regard to the needs of the colonized. The postcolonial state was thus bequeathed a corrupt police system that fails to cater to the needs of the people. This unfortunate development explains the emergence of “ethnic armies” in the face of corrupt and insensitive national police.
Introduction In the face of ever increasing acts of lawlessness, social disorder, armed robbery, and senseless vindictive assassinations in Nigeria, it has become necessary to look for causal explanations that go beyond superficial semantics. This research work is therefore intended to add to the body of literature that go to substantiate the claim that colonial policing was not introduced to protect the lives and property of Africans. It was rather introduced to protect colonial interests (traders and missionary agents) financed to serve the economic needs of colonialism which is exploitation. Additionally, this work will lend credence to the view that the present obstacles in the way of effective policing in Nigeria is an inevitable aftermath of a colonial system designed to conquer, displace, and suppress, for the sole objective of exploiting African indigenous labor and resources. Nigeria needs to shade off neocolonial apron that has stymied progress and embrace innovative approaches geared towards combating the obstacles in the way of a detached
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