Governor of Rivers state, Mr. Nyesom Wike recently called on the Federal Government to beef up security in his state. This first came to me as a shock, and I had a wild laugh. My first reaction; whatever happened to the monthly security vote? (Remember it is still undisclosed).
But again, I reprocessed his words, and identified two salient points.
First, it is not only clear that citizens are open to all forms of security challenges (armed banditry, swindlers, and even molestations from poorly trained security personnel and all kinds of intimidations), but state governors are virtually too powerless to effectively combat the security challenges in their states. Pathetic as this may be, it doesn’t end there.
Citizens of these states only have God to look up to as their defence.
Their lives could be cut short unapologetically in a flash. Does that scare you? If it does, hold on to ‘May the Lord keep us’ – a cliché that has become quite popular in this clime. Isn’t God that protects truly? Hmmm.
Critical to effective policing is the call for State police championed by some state governors. This was intensified last year, but serious counter arguments were raised to discourage this from seeing the light of the day. Chief among these arguments is how juggernauts will likely abuse this system and make a total mess of things thereby making matter worse than we have ever had. But, how do we curb the spate of killings if State Police is not introduced?
Last year, the IGP mentioned the gripping challenge of the Police Force as insufficient manpower, and in line with the UN regulation of one police to 400 citizens, Nigeria is lagging behind.
The country needs no less than 155,000 personnel to complement the current police force. To be short of 10,000 personnel is a huge deficit, to add to that number in 100s make things really distressing.
Let States be major stakeholders. If power is devolved won’t there be effectiveness in security of lives? Would the claim of nepotism and corruption deny us from something that could drastically curb this menace; the ravaging monsters?
Since some of the arguments against the adoption of state police clearly holds no water, the FG should promptly implement this system of operation with a combine force of NPF. It’s time states control (equip, fund, manage, and deploy) their own police forces. Seeing what Lagos State has been doing with equipping and strengthening its security force, one cannot deny the possibility and effectiveness of State Police.
There are countries operating this state police system, with UK having ’45 territorial police and 3 special forces’; United States, Switzerland, Spain, Mexico, Germany and Canada all operate this system as well.
Don’t be tempted about the security threats some of these Nations still face. At least, that doesn’t happen every night. This assertion is true because you usually see empathy shown with the hashtag “IStandWith” whatever country the havoc was wrecked. But here, it is becoming a norm—you will have to stand with the people of Benue, Taraba, Anambra, Borno every morning—won’t you be tired of standing? We are gradually forced to live with this, which should not be the case. I will strongly urge that we shouldn’t be quick to tell of its failure without trail. If it fails, then, we will try again.
Let’s quit considering the possibility, let’s make it work. Let States control their own security intelligence, manage internal conflicts, curb life threatening issues before it escalate, monitor closely our porous borders and ensure lives and properties of citizens are well protected in these rural areas.
Let’s just make something work. Shouldn’t the lives of citizens be valuable than that of a chicken?
– Ologun Opeyemi
A concerned citizen
