The dialectic of police reform in Nigeria
Author:
- 14 May 2008
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Cambridge University Press (CUP) in The Journal of Modern African Studies
- Vol. 46 (2) , 215-234
Abstract
Despite decades of police assistance and the recent introduction of reform plans, Nigeria's public police remain notoriously brutal and corrupt. This raises the question of whether even flawed reforms in a relatively democratic environment can make a significant difference to policing standards and practices. Based on developments in the Nigeria Police since 2005, this article suggests that reform can make a normative and organisational difference, but that in the absence of fundamental socio-political change, its effects tend to be superficial, localised and temporary. Reform's dynamic is better understood as a classic dialectic than a serial succession of movements.Keywords
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