When the NAPF was introduced in Plateau Province, there was an initial reluctance to recruit men from the area to serve as NA police. As I have discussed in the forgone section, the policy of the colonial government in regards to eligibility meant that for the Northern Provinces a majority of recruits for the NAPF were drawn from the Hausa emirates. The large number of Hausas in the NAPF was also importantly informed by the fact that Hausas constituted a large number of ex-servicemen who had served in the Northern Nigerian
412 Selcan Miner, interviewed by Jimam Lar, Jos‐Nigeria, 7th.01.2014
413 Rotimi, Hegemony through the back door, 7.
414 JosProf 1/1/3641 Plateau Province, Annual Report (Departmental) 1939, Police Plateau Province, 10.
134 Regiment during the First World War most of the men were in the Cameroonian theatre of the war. In fact, in the first decade of the twentieth century, Nigerians recruited to serve in the colonial army had been almost entirely drawn from the Hausa and the Yoruba. The two groups provided over 80 per cent of the serving soldiers in the Northern and Southern Regiments respectively.415
John Barrett in his study of the rank and file of the colonial army during the First World War states that by the time the war broke out the Yoruba and Hausa were no longer as keen as before to join the colonial army; rather they preferred to pursue careers in commerce as traders.416 The British therefore switched attention to the “excellent pagan tribes available.”417 Thus by 1916 the majority of men being recruited were drawn from the Fulani, Kanuri, Munchi (Tiv) and other numerous ethnic minorities of the then Northern Provinces, who were simply classified in the records as ‘pagan tribes.’418 It was thus logical that a higher number of NAPF personnel had an army service background. Importantly, the colonial administration also made it possible for World War I veterans to learn specific skills, which would help them in the process of settling to civilian life. For example, training centres organised schoolmasters to provide English classes for soldiers to improve on the ‘pidgin’ English acquired from the war experience.419 There was also intensive training in driving and mechanical maintenance.420 This was particularly the case for the higher echelons of the NAPF.
By the late 1930s to early 1940s when the British were recruiting for the Second World War, a considerable number of men were from the non-emirate groups of the Northern Provinces.
Colonial military service in the Second World War created an opening for the recruitment of men for NAPF service from the specific communities where the chiefdoms were established.
In 1946, following the end of the Second World War, there was a windfall of recruits in the wake of massive demobilisation and resettlement of Nigerian ex-servicemen who fought as part of the Nigerian Regiment of the British war effort in Burma. While several ex-servicemen rebuilt their lives as farmers in colonial established agricultural programmes,
135 others embraced forms of handwork like carpentry, trading, and tailoring. The main source of employment for ex-servicemen was the N.A. Police, which took the opportunity to increase its force.421 A decade earlier, the report of a Conference of Residents, Northern Provinces, held in Jos in 1937 commented that recruitment should be encouraged as much as possible from the ranks of ex-soldiers and government police. The report went on to encourage the recruitment of N.A. Police, particularly ex-servicemen from outside of the Province. It stated:
“The idea that a tribe or local community will not stand a Dan Doka other than of its own tribal stock seems nowadays out of date. If a suitable candidate of local stock is available, well and good, - if not, the disciplined ex-servicemen from elsewhere are preferable to the local never do well who takes on the post as a soft job.”422 John Hare, a former colonial district officer in the Adamawa Province, recalls the importance of ex-servicemen to the workings of the NAPF in the following words: “ex-soldiers from the Second World War were very important for discipline and efficiency of the NA police”.423
Providing further insight on this point, Danladi Tanglar, a former NAPF officer who served in Langtang and Shendam Native Authorities, pointed out that in the late 1940s most recruits of the NAPF came from WWII veterans, precisely because
At this time, no educated person found the job of Yan Doka attractive. In the 1920s, Yan Doka were Dogarai of Chiefs. However, by the 1940s when Provinces and divisions were created District Officers needed a security force to maintain law and order, but also to assist in collecting taxes. As a former NA police officer, it was very clear to see that the Northern Regional government established the NAPF to provide security and a policing institution for the DOs, Chiefs, and the staff of the local administration.”424
In his Annual Report of 1926, the Resident of Plateau Province providing updates on the recruitment of Yan Doka in the Province reiterated this point as he noted that, “…as far as possible the forces (NAPF) are recruited from men of good character who have served their time in the Nigeria Regiment.”425 Another example that illustrates the reliance on ex-servicemen for NAPF work in the Plateau Province is the 1946 Annual Report: Shendam
421 Ndaushep Chenvong Vongbut, interviewed by Jimam Lar Langtang, Plateau state, 2nd. 09.2012.
422 JOSPROF: 468, Report Conference of Residents, Northern Province,1937, Subject: Yan Doka
423 John Hare interviewed by Jimam Lar, Kent, United Kingdom, 20.08.2013.
424 Danladi Tanglar Wuyep, interviewed by Jimam Lar, Jos, Plateau state, 12.01.2015.
425 NAK, JosProf 2/18/497/1926, Plateau Province Annual Report for 1926
136 Division, by the Divisional Officer L.J. Logan. Logan reporting to the higher echelons of colonial authority in Northern Nigeria claimed “…the general level of the Yan Doka is improving, by the retirement of less suitable types in favour of ex-soldiers of good quality.”426 He goes on to commend the Yan Doka, noting “…some ex-soldiers have already shown ability in police work in difficult cases. The present Sarkin Yan-Doka is an ex-Regular Regimental Sergeant Major and a fair percentage of the rank-and-file have had two or even three stripes [ranks] in the army.”427 The recruitments in 1926 represented the engaging of ex-servicemen from the World War 1, and the recruitments in 1946 were drawn from World War II veterans.
The colonial principle of recruiting ex-servicemen as local police and as staff of the Native Administration in the Plateau Province began after WW1 and continued after WWII. While these men were being recruited to engage in police work, their major source of socialisation and experience had been in the art of soldiering. The hope of the colonial government was that with the right training, they could create local police officers from war veterans. While the ex-servicemen constituted the core of the NAPF, the colonial provincial government made the effort to also recruit ‘suitable’ young men to blend with the ex-servicemen.428 Particular training schemes were subsequently designed to prepare both categories of recruits for police work. Therefore, the scenario that unfolded was a situation where men who had been conscripted, trained and deployed to Burma to fight during the Second World War were recruited to serve in the NA police force. They brought with them not just the experiences of soldiering, but also the characteristics and ranking systems of the army. An examination of the structure of the NA police does lend more to being a unit of the army, rather than the police. For instance, an officer with the rank of a Regimental Sergeant Major (RSM) runs the NA police at the level or grade of a divisional headquarters like Shendam Lowland Division;
the Sarkin Yan Doka carried the badge of an RSM. In NAs with a grade lower like Langtang and Wase, the Sarkin Yan Doka was a Staff Sergeant, with the Madakin Yan Doka (2nd in Command) a Corporal.429
While the chiefs in the Plateau Province welcomed the designation of 50% or more of recruits coming from ex-servicemen430, there was a concern in the emirates that recruiting such a large
426 NAK, JosProf 1/1/6451/1947, Plateau Province Annual Report for 1946
427 Ibid
428 Ali Dakshang, interviewed by Jimam Lar, Dadur‐Langtang North, 7.10.2012.
429 Ibid.
430 Benjamin Voncir, interviewed by Jimam Lar, Langtang, Plateau state, 10.01.2015
137 percentage of NAPF from ex-servicemen could potentially undermine the Emir’s authority and thereby alienate the force.431 In fact, the then colonial Inspector General of Police, who was more in tune with the practice amongst the emirates, commenting on the high numbers of ex-soldiers availing themselves for NAPF recruitment across the northern Provinces, is quoted to have quipped that “ex-soldiers though excellent raw material have little or no knowledge of police duties.”432 The Assistant Commissioner of Police, in a report on recruitment and training of NAPF for the Plateau Province expressed the same sentiment, voicing his dislike for ex-servicemen; though he did concede, “one or two are useful for drill purposes.”433 However, in view of the fact that the recruitment of NAPF was handled at the Provincial level ex-servicemen did constitute the bulk of recruits of Yan Doka in the Plateau Province, until the mid-1950s when the NAs in Plateau began to actively seek recruits with some level of Western literacy to take up responsibilities in administration. This was a decade after the end of WWII so there were no unemployed servicemen left to recruit. The Plateau lowlands, particularly the Tarok community, continued to have a long history of military service during the subsequent decades after independence. Therefore, over the decades, there were a growing number of retired military men resettled within Tarok society and other parts of the Plateau lowlands serving as vigilante group members. Ex-servicemen continually influenced the activities of non-state policing institutions.
The point taken from this section is the fact that in the inter-war years and post-1945 the socialisation of NA policing was based on army ideals and practice. As I have argued previously, in spite of all the efforts and training schemes employed by the government at this time, the socialisation gained from soldiering remained the major influence on policing practices of the NAPF. This was clearly, because most recruits in the first decades of the NAPF were ex-servicemen. This however began to change when the NA police began to recruit Middle School graduates from the early 1950s to the mid-1950s. As more war veterans retired and the NPF instituted more training regimes for the NAPF, the NAPF was informed increasingly by the competencies gained from police training and practice. The annual reports in the 1950s praised the work of the NAPF in the Province. For instance, the Annual Report:
Lowland Division434 1950 noted how “…the N.A. Police force continues to show considerable improvement both in its general turn out and discipline and in its ability to
431 Memorandum, Resident .i/c Kano to Superintendent of Nigerian Police – 11.08.1928
432 NAK, JosProf. 141/1928,N.A Police Force, Recruitment and Training
433 NAK, JosProf.468/1942, N.A Jos Division Yan Doka Force Curricular
434 Formerly Shendam Division.
138 contribute towards the maintenance of law and order.”435 The 1955 Annual Report of the same Lowland Division showered glowing commendation on the NAPF, the District Officer D.H. Lloyd-Morgan, was happy to lavish the NAPF with praise, referring to it as “one of the more satisfactory aspects of the Division, under the admirable leadership of the Sarkin Yan Doka (Chief of Yan Doka) it has done some excellent work in the maintenance of law and order and the rounding up of criminals.”436
Similar to the NAPF the Nigerian military, particularly the army, had much influence on the socialisation of vigilante groups and vigilante policing. This was informed by the continued involvement of war veterans; in this case, veterans of the Nigerian civil war have continued to constitute the core-training component of vigilante groups. In my study of the current vigilante formation, the VGN, we can clearly identify military influences and practices. I will highlight two instances. In most of the local government branches studied in this thesis, the retired soldiers were responsible for providing training. Retired police officers were responsible for training in Yelwa town in Shendam LGA and some of the vigilante groups in Jos metropolis. These were the exceptions I encountered, but in Langtang North, Pankshin, and other parts of Shendam LGA retired soldiers were prominently involved. In the next section, I turn to colonial police training and how this influenced the policing practice of the NAPF.