Police-Citizen Relations in Nigeria

<div>This book&nbsp;offers an historical and contemporary analysis of policing and police-citizen relations in Nigeria, to&nbsp;understand&nbsp;why people co-operate (or don’t) with the police. It&nbsp;examines&nbsp;police legitimacy and the validity of procedural justice theory&nbsp;in a post-colonial African context where&nbsp;corruption, brutality and lack of accountability are not uncommon,&nbsp;to find more refined and alternative answers to the question of why people co-operate (or don’t) with the police. The history of policing in Nigeria is explored first and then&nbsp;procedural justice theory&nbsp;is tested through an extensive,&nbsp;cross-sectional survey of the public. One of the core&nbsp;findings is that citizens’ co-operation with the police is driven less by legitimacy but more by effectiveness considerations and “dull compulsion”, a concept akin to legal cynicism. This study represents one of the first attempts to&nbsp;test and understand&nbsp;“dull compulsion” and&nbsp;its relevance in this context. Overall,&nbsp;it develops the field by illustrating that&nbsp;that there are significant variations between contexts when addressing the influence of perceived procedural justice policing on perceptions of police legitimacy, and it explains the implications&nbsp;for&nbsp;policy makers.</div>