A former member of the National Assembly, Senator Dino Melaye says the security woes in Nigeria can best be resolved only when the country embrace a state policing structure.
Melaye stated this while delivering his keynote speech at the 8th parliamentary lecture of the National Association of Oyo Students held at the Atiba Hall, Oyo on Saturday.
The Kogi-based politician, who was represented at the event by Asiwaju Bode Gbadebo, also noted that Nigeria’s current political structure won’t allow the country experience true development.
“The broader topic or theme of today’s event is apt and all-encompassing given the situation Nigeria finds herself in recent years. However, at the risk of being misconstrued as a pessimist, let me say emphatically that we cannot contain the current turbulence all over the country, unless we are all determined to truly secure our nation, adequately police communities and ultimately rescue Nigeria with all sincerity of purpose.
“The answers are not far-fetched. I have identified two reasons for our current insecurity predicament. One is a faulty and unjust political structure of Nigeria and secondly, the lack of political will on the part of political office-holders to do the right thing. What is the right thing? It’s restructuring Nigeria in line with international best practices.
“What are international best practices in this context? It’s for us as a nation to embrace what other Federations across the world are doing right and getting results. Nigeria is the only Federation in the world with one centralised Police Force. This is an anomaly in a true Federation.
“Given Nigeria’s population, landmass, diversities and other peculiarities, securing and policing her will always be a difficult task and probably without results. This is what we are all witnessing today. Therefore, the time for the idea of State Police to germinate is now in order to secure and adequately police Nigeria.
“Having State Police will decentralise the Nigeria Police Force with concomitant benefits outweighing the fear of the new system of policing being abused and turned into a tool for settling political scores by state governors and other political office-holders.
“In a decentralised police system, responsibility for law enforcement is shared by various levels of government with specific allocation of duties and defined coordination. Good examples abound in Ghana, India, United States and Canada, among several other countries.
“Even if we cannot have Nigeria restructured now as being clamoured by well-meaning Nigerians in line with international best federalism practices to have a State Police and other necessary features of a Federation, which Nigeria claims to be, the Police Force as presently constituted lacks the manpower, resources and infrastructure to adequately police the country.
“In a country of about 200 million people, we have a Police Force of about 300,000 personnel. It has a meagre budgetary provision of about N18.4billion in the 2021 budget, no adequate infrastructure and necessary capacity-building training for operatives.
“It suffices to say that policing in today’s world requires sophisticated gadgets, procurement of up-to-date equipment and facilities, while the personnel require appropriate training both within and outside of the country when necessary.
“Therefore, there is the need for a paradigm shift in the policing structure of Nigeria. We must embrace the idea of State Police, and afterward ensure it is insulated from politics; only qualified personnel should be recruited. And all the necessary infrastructure should be made available for all levels of policing in order to secure our communities and Nigeria as a whole,” Melaye said.
Earlier at the event, the Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission, Prof. Adeolu Akande, who chaired the event, noted that it is impossible for any society to grow when the security of lives and properties can not be guaranteed.
“The problem of banditry, kidnapping, hooliganism, armed robbery and all of those vices have become so rampant that uts difficult not to pay attention to the security of our country,” Akande added.
