The Pan Niger Delta Forum (PANDEF) has declared its support for the plans to establish state police, as it will help to solve the problem of insecurity in the country.
The elite Niger Delta group said it was of no use for people from outside a state to secure a state where they are not from, pointing out that a security man who is from a community knows how to secure his locality.
PANDEF’s national publicity secretary, Chief Omininim Obiuwevbi, who spoke with LEADERSHIP in Port Harcourt on Friday, however, said there was the need to legalise the already existing collaboration between the local vigilante groups, the Nigeria Police Force and the traditional institution.
Obiuwevbi said: “Infact, without mincing words, PANDEF supports state police because state policing will help to solve the problem of insecurity. There is no need for a Zamfara man coming to Cross River or coming to Rivers or Delta, Edo, Akwa Ibom or Bayelsa, to secure the environment. He doesn’t know anywhere.
“Likewise, no need for Osun or Ebonyi man going to Plateau or going to Katsina to go and secure their state. A man who knows his locality will work better to secure his area.
“In another dimension, there is already state policing because we have vigilante who are working in collaboration with state governments, traditional rulers and divisional police officers.
“In most cases, when you get to some divisions of the police, you have more vigilante than the police.
“That tells you we are already having local policing or state policing but what we are advocating for is that it should be legalised; it should be constitutionalised so that the governors can now have full control of their own police because as it is today, the governors, despite being the chief security officers of their states, they do not have effective command and control over Police Commissioners when they start having counter directives from AIGs, DIGs or the IGP. So, state policing is very crucial to Nigeria at the moment.”
