Factions in the force: IGP's warning better late than never

 

 It could scarcely come as a surprise that factions have reared their head in the police force.

Otherwise, Inspector-General of Police Acryl Sani Abdullah Sani (above) would not have issued a public warning about the spread of the virus in the force.

He took the occasion of a change of guard in a state’s contingent to warn against factions in the force.

In the public arena, it would be no surprise to find factions in political parties.

Factions are endemic to democratic parties - ambitious politicians are destined to vie with each other to get ahead in the leadership stakes.

This is only to be expected.

In a democracy getting up the greasy pole of political leadership requires individuals to show their mettle and forge alliances with allies to get ahead of rivals within a party.

Nobody familiar with the mechanics of contestation and leader selection in democracies would blink an eye at this process.

But to hear of factions in the police force of a democracy would be to see something normative to a political party transposed to an arm of government whose ethos should be hostile to factions.

In pursuit of this ethos, the partisanship inherent to the political arena is alien.

Existence of factions

The existence of factions in the political force is akin to the sale of state and national awards to sundry bidders with deep pockets.

Hence the caution issued by the IGP must be seen as a warning of the arrival of a virus that if left unchecked would destroy the force.

To be sure, its arrival in the force should not come as a big surprise.

Observers must have been disturbed several years ago when a cabal of police officers, in a letter to then prime minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, cautioned against the implementation of a proposal contained in a raft of recommendations to improve the management of the police force.

The recommendations were compiled after a 15-month study by a royal commission of inquiry (RCI) set up in December 2003 shortly after Abdullah had taken over as prime minister from Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

Among them was a proposal to set up an Independent Police Complaints and Misconduct Commission (IPCMC) to investigate public complaints about the conduct of the police.

The RCI was set up because of widespread public dissatisfaction over complaints of misconduct by members of the force.

Abdullah was responding to this disgruntlement when he empowered the RCI.

Upon the release of their report in March 2005, he called for its immediate implementation.

Many voices were heard in the ensuing public debate.

‘No to IPCMC’

As the issue sizzled in the public arena, a cabal of police officers aired their opposition to the IPCMC proposal with a letter that virtually threatened the government with a withdrawal of the police force’s support at the next general election if the proposal were implemented.

The threat was a brazen contravention of the principle of neutrality of the force, the principle that the force is apolitical.

Casual observers noted it was the first demonstration - a highly disconcerting at that - of the force’s willingness to flex its muscle in the electoral arena.

Neither the prime minister nor the home minister commented on the threatened breach of the neutrality principle then.

In hindsight, that was a mistake.

It showed that the political powers were supine before a threatened breach that should have been admonished and rebuked for insolence.

Uncorrected mistakes this serious only beget more of the same.

When the redoubtable Abdul Hamid Bador was retiring as IGP a few years ago (to be replaced by Acryl Sani), the then-home minister let on in a social media post that his replacement ought to be someone he and his political allies considered as one of their boys.

This was a display of factionalism that was simply not on.

As far as the public record would show, the minister was not reprimanded by higher-ups for his partisanship.

The current IGP is attempting to check an incubus that has been myopically allowed entry.

Better late than never. - Mkini

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TERENCE NETTO is a journalist with half a century’s experience.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of MMKtT.