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“The fear of being
a victim of crime is far higher than the possibility of being a victim.
People who are afraid of crime are virtually incapacitated. It affects
social relationships, economic activities, political stability and
confidence, especially in the government and law enforcement agencies,”
said Etannibi Alemika, a professor of criminology at the University of
Jos.

Mr. Alemika said
this Tuesday while presenting the findings of a national criminal
victimisation and safety survey held between 2007 and 2009 involving
10,228 respondents across the 36 states of Nigeria and Abuja. The
survey was conducted by CLEEN Foundation (formerly known as the Centre
for Law Enforcement Education); Practical Sampling International (PSI),
a field survey company; and DC Pro-Data Consult Ltd, a data management
company.

The findings
revealed that an overall national figure of 86.6 per cent of
respondents expressed a “very high degree of fear”, with the most
troubled respondents residing in Gombe, Abuja, Plateau, Ebonyi, Ondo
and Sokoto. It also revealed that the dominant forms of crime in the
country were theft (money, GSM handset, agricultural products, cars,
etc), robbery, domestic violence, physical assault and burglary.

From the
statistics provided, three-fifths (60 per cent) of all respondents said
corruption has increased in the last three years, with Ogun, Abia,
Nasarawa and Imo States being perceived as the most corrupt states in
Nigeria.

On public
officials viewed as most corrupt, Mr. Alemika said 51.7 per cent of
respondents complained of having been solicited for bribe by the Police
in the past 12 months. This was followed by the department of
Immigration (29.8 per cent), the Federal Road Safety Corps (29.4 per
cent), the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (27.6 per cent), the Custom
Service (26.0 per cent) and lecturers in tertiary institutions (23.2
per cent).

“More than 50 per
cent of those who report to the Police said they were dissatisfied with
the police. The major source of this dissatisfaction has to do with
their lack of capacity and gross ineffectiveness. Then, police
treatment of complainants and their integrity or lack of it, which has
to do with bribery and the Police colluding with suspects,” said Mr.
Alemika.

Reason for the study

Explaining the
objectives of the survey, CLEEN Foundation’s executive director,
Innocent Chukwuma, said, “investment in producing reliable statistics
on crime in Nigeria and promotion of their use in police planning and
deployment” has been overlooked over the years, making the federal
government, which controls law enforcement agencies, to appear
“helpless and hopeless”.

“Our objectives
include generating reliable complimentary data to official statistics
on crime and assist policy makers in crime prevention and control
planning. It will provide the Police with an information base that
would help it in the deployment of policing resources to areas most
needed and contribute in reducing the high level of fear of crime in
Nigeria,” Mr. Chukwuma said.

Moses Olusola, the
general manager of Practical Sampling International, said the
stratified multi-stage random selection procedure was used to select
female and male adult respondents aged 18 and above across the 37
states, who had lived in urban and rural households for a period of not
less than six months.

The conveners of
the conference said the survey’s findings will soon be published in a
book and advertised in the newspapers for easy access by the public.