National Confab Approves State Police

Delegates of the National Confab have on Thursday unanimously approved the establishment of state police by any of the 36 states which is desirous of it.

PM News reports: There have been numerous calls for the establishment of state police following the current unwieldly arrangement where state governors as the chief security officers of their states do not have control over the police which is controlled by the Federal Government appointed Inspector-General of Police.

Among the strong advocates of state police are the national leader of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, Governor Babatunde Fashola of Lagos State and others.

Tinubu had sometime ago in Chicago, USA, blamed the current spate of insecurity in the country on the reluctance of the Federal Government to share security responsibility with the nation’s constituent parts.

This monopolisation of security control, he said in a paper entitled: ‘Nigerian and the Search for True Federalism,’ has turned Nigeria into one of the most dangerous places on earth.

Citing the Boko Haram menace, Asiwaju Tinubu said: “Because it wants to acquire power and not lose any, the national government has adamantly opposed any decentralisation of internal security. The result has been that Nigeria is becoming one of the most dangerous places on earth. Not only do we have Boko Haram, there is growing insecurity and blatant unchecked criminality in other parts of the nation.

“The roots of these security challenges have mostly local origins. A centralised structure, however, tends to deploy security officials and units with insufficient knowledge and understanding of local issues.

“Instead of helping, the security personnel often worsen the situation because of their lack of knowledge. Community policing has proven effective in many different social conditions around the world. It is an idea whose time has come for Nigeria. However, it cannot be applied purposefully under the current security structure. Thus, our security apparatus remains big but uninformed.”

Those in support of state police argue that Nigeria with a population of about 170 million is too large to be controlled by a federal police with headquarters in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital.

They suggest the American model where there are federal police along with state police and county police, National Guard and several others at various levels.