As the nation continues to witness more bloodbath in the country, a former Delta State gubernatorial aspirant in the 2007 election and chieftain of Peoples Democratic Party, PDP has appealed to the National Assembly to immediately pass the State Police Bill into Law.
Chief Sunny Onuesoke, a prominent and outspoken environmental expert who made the appeal in Ado-Ekiti, Ekiti state during a workshop on creation of state police, said that, considering recent level of threat to public security across the country, taking recourse to State Police, seems a more attractive option.
He added that, “the centralised policing system in the country, has not really been effective and it is only logical that we consider other plausible options”.
Onuesoke argued that, to properly address the security question in the country, we need to tackle the touchy issue of State Police, stressing that the current centralized police structure in the country will continue to limit the capacity of states to effectively address security issues.
“Aside the well accepted philosophy that policing is essentially a local matter, every crime is local in nature.
“Hence, it is only rational to localize the police force. No matter its form, crime detection needs a local knowledge that State Police can better provide”.
“Let’s face the fact. Nigeria is too large and complex to be policed centrally. In an ideal federal system, the issue of state police should not be a contentious matter, after all, in the First Republic, there were regional police and local police existing side by side the federal police”, he said.
“If we are really serious about overcoming current security challenges in the country, we need to re-examine the issue of State Police more earnestly and objectively”, Onuesoke posited.
The PDP Chieftain maintained that if state police formations come into existence, it would be more penetrative and wide spread as well as more community-friendly, relative to the NPF, stressing that since state governments now bore a reasonable percentage of the platforms and other logistics elements, it made sense for them to be constitutionally allowed to establish, fund and operate police formations.
Onuesoke, who disagreed with the argument in some quarters that State Police is nothing but a recipe for anarchy, as it could lead to abuse of power, argued that the reality, however, is that the present centralized policing arrangement has, over the years, equally been subjected to limitless abuse by the central authority.
Speaking further, Chief Onuesoke said; “as a matter of fact, agitation for the creation of State Police should not be viewed as a partisan or an anti-Federal Government crusade. Neither can it be said to be the handiwork of mischief-makers or rabble-rousers”.
“State Police is an important component of true federalism and an emblem of authority of governance, since sovereignty is divided between the central authority and federating state authorities”, Onuesoke argued.
The PDP chieftain observed that the killings in the country, corruption in police and oppression of the common man, continued mainly because, the federating states were not constitutionally allowed to recruit, train, and equip enough manpower for the security of lives and property of citizens in their states.
“The internal security of Nigeria depends on one man or woman, who sits in Abuja as the Inspector-General of Police”.
“Nigeria is the only federated state practicing centralized police system. I pray members of National Assembly should pass the Bill on time to put an end to the atrocities and oppression going on the country”, Onuesoke stated.
