Plateau Killings: Foundation Wants Police Decentralised

Foundation for Peace Professionals (PeacePro), has urged the federal government to immediately decentralise policing in Nigeria to put an end to the cycle of violence that has claimed many innocent people in the country.

The group said there’s nothing the current centralized policing structure can do to prevent the magnitude of organized violence in rural communities, adding that the federal government must now decentralize security or watch the country go up in flames.

“There’s no other option, we must decentralise policing or surrender to non-state actors until we are eventually overwhelmed, “ it added.

Reacting to the recent violence which claimed over 200 lives in Plateau State, the executive director of PeacePro, Mr Abdulrazaq Hamzat expressed reservation with the federal government’s non proactive approach to issues of security in rural communities in the country.

“We are sad about the development in Plateau State where organized local criminals descended on innocent people and wreaked havoc on them in the most dehumanizing manner. But this tragedy could have been avoided, if the federal government had been proactive with the issue of security in rural Nigeria,” Hamzat said.

Hamzat noted that, it is no longer news that, “there are too many ungoverned spaces in Nigeria, where organized and well sponsored non – state actors operate as lords, and these spaces have become training grounds for all kinds of terrorists, mercenaries and bandits.”

“The systematic organisation, unhindered supply and availability of high grade fire arms as well as sustainable funding in the hands of these non – state actors cannot be threatened by occasional federal security clearance, operations and patrol, and this is well known to the federal government and all concerned stakeholders in the country,” he submitted.

Hamzat insisted that only the decentralisation of policing can address the challenge, calling on the federal government to do the needful by decentralizing policing, instead of issuing threats and condolences endlessly.

He also urged the National Assembly to lead the process of facilitating the decentralisation of policing, saying only a decentralized security architecture can arrest insecurity in the country.