A case for immediate for immediate unionisation of police personnel has been made as the #EndSARS protests enter second week and continues to spread across the country, Comrade Issa Aremu has stated.
Comrade Aremu, Vice President, IndustriALL Global Union and immediate past General Secretary of National Union of Textile, Garment and Tailoring Workers of Nigeria (NUTGTWN) said allowing the police to unionise would be one of the viable and sustainable reforms that will make the Nigeria Police to be accountable and responsive.
Aremu, in a statement made available to National Record, said the time has come in Nigeria to allow police personnel “to improve their conditions of work through free and independent associations and unions instead of the present regimented arrangement in which police unleashed pent up frustrations against the people they are paid to protect.”
Praising the youth for initiating the #EndSARS movement by exposing the brutality of the notorious police unit and the precarious conditions under which the Nigeria Police operate, Aremu noted that “only free organised working police women and men can better freely speak for themselves. So far everybody speaks for the police, often against them (due to the brutalities of the few in their ranks), but the police who do the work and wear the shoes can tell their stories better through free associations or trade unions.”
He said the precarious working conditions faced by police personnel include, poor remuneration, forced postings, poor and lack of training, among others.
He said: “Decolonise and reform the police so as to allow the rank and file the freedom of association as contained in 1999 constitution (with a provision that they cannot go on strike, but they can channel their grievances through collective bargaining) as it is the case in democratic countries like South Africa, United Kingdom and United States of America (USA).
“There are almost one million police men in America, 75-80% of them organised into unions, while in South Africa all service men and women are members of the South African Policing Union (SAPU) established in November 1993 with workers in Correctional Services as members.”
“While the current protests against serial unilinear atrocities of some men in uniforms are welcomed, however, the country needs a holistic, bird’s-eye view of the crisis of policing for an enduring police reform.”
He recalled that in 2002 in the administration of President Obasanjo administration, the country’s police went on strike over a dispute on wages and unpaid benefits during which the government deployed the army to take up duties normally done by them. He said there was the need to appreciate that those who protect citizens must also be protected first against want.
“It’s time Nigeria considered the British and South African models of allowing police to have a union with a provision that they would not go on strike as essential services. Certainly police men and women need a platform to articulate their concerns about their jobs and their welfare.
“There are abundant data on police brutalities, there are also cases of police men and women who are casualties of criminals. Only policemen and women can speak for themselves in a free association regulated by essential services law.
“If you deny police men and women open collective bargaining opportunity on their conditions of work and existence, they would do “collecting bargaining” and extortions at gunpoint at checkpoints as we have seen over the years. Every police man deserves decent work like other workers.”
While commending the Inspector-General of Police, Mohammed Adamu, for disbanding the notorious SARS, he warned against the newly set up SWAT as that will still suffer from the challenges of being “recycled, untrained and under-motivated” and therefore follow the same route as SARS.
