The immediate past chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Enugu State, Dr. Ben Nwoye, has faulted the claim that governors are the chief security officers of their states, describing it as mere rhetoric.
Nwoye stated this at the weekend in Enugu while speaking at the new edition of the 2025 Enugu State Security Summit organised by Comrade Ogbodo Ebubechukwu, the director of the Inter Campus Management of NANS, Enugu State chapter.
He made it clear that the 1999 constitution gave the role of policing the country including the states to the federal government, noting that the role is in the exclusive list.
Nwoye, a lecturer at the Institute of Conflict and Development Studies of the Enugu State University of Science and Technology (ESUT), stressed that the police take orders from above.
He explained that even the personal security guards of the governors could be recalled if they don’t play their role well.
Nwoye, however, stated that the governors are only playing a supportive role to the federal government to secure their states.
He said the 1999 constitution needed to be amended to include state policing so that governors would have full powers over the police in their states.
” As at few days ago, the government realised their error, we now have President Tinubu pushing for state policing, the 1999 constitution says that the job of policing this nation lies with the federal government,” he stated.
Nwoye also identified absence of true records to be cited for the actual number of policemen or soldiers as part of the problem.
He therefore told the participants to appeal to their political representatives to push for inclusion of state policing in the constitution.
