State Police: Experts Seek Proper Legal Framework, Disagree With IGP

Security experts have differed with the inspector-general police (IGP) over his assertion that Nigeria is not matured or prepared for state police.

In an interaction with LEADERSHIP, the experts said Nigeria is in dire need of a state police but called for the strengthening of legal framework for its operations.

The managing director of Beacon Consulting and Security Service, Dr Kabir Adamu, said contrary to the IGP’s position, the consensus among Nigerians is that policing is inadequate in the country.

“Too many Nigerians are dying. Another consensus is that there should be a caution in how we approach the concept of state police for the simple reason that it’s not going to cure all our security problems like some people think,” he said.

He said the root causes of insecurity in Nigeria has nothing to do with number of security personnel in the country.

“The issues of illiteracy, unemployment, socio- economic conditions and all of that even if you make every Nigerian police personnel and those issues remain, there will still be crime in the country.

“The dialogue today preached caution. Nobody opposed state police. We only cautioned that process of creating state police should avoid the pitfalls that affected the First Republic regional policing system.

“In other words, we should strengthen democratic tenets at the state level so that the state executive will not hijack that instrument of force.

“No 2 is that the funding for the state police should be well thought out at the beginning, no 3, the creation of ombudsman at the federal level, we have the police service commission but at the state level who is going to be the ombudsman?

“If we are going to create a state police service commission, how are we going to handle that? Then the National control for the state police, currently we have the national police council which never sits.

The only time they have sat is when it was confirming the IGP which is wrong and in total violation of the Acts 2020,“ he said.

He stressed that the governance structure missing at the federal level should not repeat at the state level.  „If we appoint ombudsman at the state level, we should make sure they are independent. That the chairman is not appointed by the governor or the speaker. It should be an autonomous commission that looks into rights abuses. Another one is jurisdiction,“ he said.

Also, the secretary-general, International Institute of Professional Security (IIPS) Dr Abdullahi Mohammed Jabi said Nigeria was indeed ripe for state police but called for caution in establishing them not to become instruments of abuse by state actors.

„Nigeria is mature and quite in need of state police. If we have come from regional to conventional and federal police, is it not transformation from the grassroots to where we are? In 21st century you‘re saying Nigeria is not mature for state police then when are we going to be mature for state police? I disagree with him absolutely,” he said.

He warned the Nigeria police against conspiring to kill the idea of state police as it would help the federal police.