Pandemic Policing and Community Engagement: Preparedness, Legitimacy and Public Support During the COVID-19 Crisis in Nigeria

• Published date: 01 September 2024
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/07340168221142909
• Author: Richard Abayomi Aborisade,Oladele Adelere Adeleke
• Date: 01 September 2024

Pandemic Policing

and Community Engagement:

Preparedness, Legitimacy

and Public Support During

the COVID-19 Crisis in Nigeria

Richard Abayomi Aborisade

1

and Oladele Adelere Adeleke

1

Abstract

This study brings to the fore, insights into three key factors that had been widely noted to play

significant roles in driving effective pandemic policing. These are the preparedness of the police

as first responders to a public health crisis, the level of public trust in the police as a legitimate

power holder, and community engagement as a tool to drive public support and participation in

fighting COVID-19. Using the Nigeria police as a case study, with the damning reports of abuse

of power and other misconduct, this study examined how thepolice responded to COVID-19 man-

dates and community participation. Interviews with 40 police officers who enforced the COVID-19

lockdown, 16 senior police officers, and 18 community leaders within Lagos and Ogun states were

conducted, and a thematic analysis of the narratives was carried out. Findings indicated that com-

munity engagement was not effectively deployed by the Nigerian police in the course of pandemic

policing. This was due to a lack of police preparedness, over-reliance on the use of force for public

control, public distrust in the police, and a lack of prior practice of community engagement by the

police. Public distrust in the police was found to be central to peoples’disobedience to COVID-19

rules which worsened police-community relations, culminating in protests against the police and its

formations. These findings have important policy and practical implications if police legitimacy and

post-COVID police-community relations are to improve.

Keywords

community engagement, COVID-19, legitimacy, pandemic policing, procedural justice

1

Department of Sociology, Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago-Iwoye, Nigeria

Corresponding Author:

Richard Abayomi Aborisade, Department of Sociology, Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago-Iwoye, Ogun State PMB 2002,

Nigeria.

Email: aborisade.richard@oouagoiwoye.edu.ng

Article

Criminal Justice Review

2024, Vol. 49(3) 375-394

© 2022 Georgia State University

Article reuse guidelines:

sagepub.com/journals-permissions

DOI: 10.1177/07340168221142909

journals.sagepub.com/home/cjr

Introduction

The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak a global

pandemic on March 11, 2020 (WHO, 2020a). The highly contagious status of the virus culminated

in an unprecedented global response with governments adopting measures to counter the pandemic

and cope with the attendant increasing pressures on their public health systems. In the process, direc-

tives that have been criticised as a breach of the rule of law, and negating the role of parliament in

adopting democratic decisions were taken to limit the mobility of people (Nivette et al., 2021; Stott

et al., 2020). These directives widely referred to as ‘lockdown’measures, largely bordered on the

restriction of certain basic human rights, especially the rights to peaceful assembly and freedom

of movement. The need to enforce the lockdown measures prompted governments across the

world to engage law enforcement agents to monitor and enforce compliance. However, the processes

of policing the pandemic have been trailed by widespread reports of police high-handedness, use of

excessive force, and wanton abuse of human rights across the world (Aborisade & Gbahabo, 2021;

Amnesty International, 2020a; Human Rights Watch, 2020). These have continued to draw concerns

about the impact of the approaches adopted by the police while enforcing COVID-19 protocols on

community relations and police legitimacy.

The Nigerian government announced a lockdown measure on 30th March 2020, a sequel to the

first reported case of COVID-19 in the country on 27th February 2020 (Nigeria Centre for

Disease Control, 2020). In declaring the total lockdown, a 24-h notice was given by the government

for the people to prepare and, thereafter, obey the stay-at-home order. However, within the first

month of police enforcement of the shutdown mandates, the National Human Rights Commission

(2020) reported 21 extra-judicial killings of those adjudged to have flouted the lockdown orders

by police officers. In addition, the commission was reported to have received 105 complaints of

human rights violations against law enforcement officials within the same period (AfricLaw,

2020). The spate of reported excessive use of force and extortion by the Nigeria police culminated

in the country being listed by the United Nations Human Rights among the fifteen (15) countries with

the ‘most troubling’allegations of human rights abuse and flouting of the rule of law under the guise

of fighting the novel coronavirus pandemic (Aljazeera, 2020).

Amnesty International (2020b) and Transparency International (2020) acknowledged the gross

abuse of human rights that characterised police enforcement of COVID-19 restriction measures in

Nigeria and expressed concern that the high-handed policing may have a long-lasting impact on legit-

imacy and police-community relationship far beyond the pandemic period. Meanwhile, in spite of the

militarised approach deployed by the Nigeria police in enforcing the COVID-19 mandates, reports

indicate a gross violation of the stay-at-home order across the country (Aborisade & Ariyo, 2022;

The Africa Report, 2020; The Guardian, 2020). This invariably suggests the ineffectiveness of the

militarised and control-dominated approaches adopted by the Nigerian police in response to the

public health crisis.

This study brings to the fore three key factors that had been widely noted to play significant roles

in driving effective pandemic policing across the world. These are the preparedness of the police as

first responders to the public health crisis (Stott et al., 2020), the level of public trust in the police as a

legitimate power holder (Jones, 2020), and community engagement as a tool for driving public

support and participation in fighting the virus (Cheng, 2020; Reicher & Stott, 2020). Gleaning

from reports of unlawful use of force, extra-judicial killings, abuse of human rights, extortion, and

other acts of misconduct against the officers enforcing the COVID-19 mandates, it is apparent

that there is a need for a review of the approaches used by the Nigerian police while intervening

in such health crisis. In doing so, this article presents an empirical review of police enforcement

of the lockdown in Nigeria, drawing analysis from the accounts of police field officers, senior

police officers, and community leaders in Lagos and Ogun states. Also, the study attempts to

376 Criminal Justice Review 49(3)