IMAGINE a city so incensed with the  ineptitude of its police that it fires the entire lot?  That was what Veracruz, a city in Mexico did, when it thought its police was not working. It sacked its 800 policemen and the 300 administrative staff.

The entire police force  was sacked and the marines and navy were asked to take charge of policing in this major Mexican gulf coast port city. Few cities could have taken such a drastic measure, but the authorities were showing their anger at the corruption in the police and the endless drug wars in the city.

Mexico is enmeshed in battles with drug lords who took over the country after the dismantling of the  Calin and Medelin drug cartels in Colombia in the past decade. Drugs worth about $48 billion are illegally exported to the United States of America annually. The impact of the trade on America is a major factor on the way the Mexican government is taking the drug wars.

The deaths from the drug business as different cartels contest for turf and influence have left Mexico almost ungovernable. The government is battling with the cartels for control in an expensive war.

Veracruz is at the centre of the most recent clashes that left many dead. Last September 25, 35 dead bodies were dumped on its streets, in one of the worst gang attacks of Mexico’s drug war.  Another 14 more bodies were found around Veracruz two days after this incident, summing up to 49 bodies found in public highways in 48 hours.

Mexican authorities last October 6, found 36 bodies in three houses. A day after, another 10 bodies were found across the State of Veracruz. The wave of violence intensified as the government crack down continued.  More than 100 died in Veracruz in two weeks.

The federal government sent military and police reinforcements to Veracruz. The Zetas, former hit men for the gulf cartel, have been blamed for the killings.  More than 45 000 people have been killed in drug-related violence in Mexico since December 2006, when the government launched a military-led crackdown on the country’s powerful drug cartels. The tally for this year has not been added. In 2010 alone, more than 15,000 people died in drug related violence.

Stories about the connivance of the police with drug lords are myriad, but Veracruz is the first state to completely disband a large police department. It will use marines and the navy as law enforcers until the State can train its own police.

The cartels have been involved in gun running across the USA border.  Figures from the US Justice Department say that in the past five years 94,000 weapons have been recovered from Mexican drug cartels, of which 64,000 – 70 per cent – come from the United States, by Mexicans resident in the US and others who acquire the guns officially at home before selling to drug cartels.

About 150,000 deserted the Mexican army between 2003 and 2009, a figure that represents about one-eighth of the Mexican army leaving annually. Many of these deserters take their officially issued automatic rifles while leaving. Some of those weapons end up with the cartels.

These incidents are lessons about how far-reaching lawlessness goes when permitted. Mexico may be thousands of kilometres from Nigeria, but the consequences of the collapse of law and order cannot be lost on us.

While we cannot sack our police force or the other security agencies like Veracruz, the bombs flying around demand that we take drastic measures, in line with our own circumstances.