Nigeria is not ripe for state police

In Nigeria’s current situation, the creation of state police will pose grave danger for the citizenry. State police will only be of benefit to the governors because some of them will seize the opportunity to serve their own interest. They could use the state police to rig elections and hunt the opposition.

The argument by governors and other proponents for the creation of state police that it is the only way to tackle insecurity in the country is hollow. In reality, state police is not the solution to insecurity. Nigeria as a country has not developed economically and politically to have state police.

Recently, some policemen in Borno state complained about non payment of their allowances. If the police are to be funded by state governments, funding will be an issue. We have states that have not paid their workers for several months, imagine adding state police to the fray. Let’s also look at the issue of boundary disputes between states. If, for instance, Ondo and Osun states have state police and they have boundary problems, of course, each would use its own police to justify its position, and that is not in the interest of justice.

When I heard the former Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, saying it is only Nigeria that has police in this form, I reasoned that no federation has evolved like Nigeria. The police can only be effective when there is a good rapport between the force and the community to the extent that they can give information on their own to the police.

Ishaq Abdullahi Adam,
Department of Mass Communication, Abubakar Tatari Ali Polytechnic, Bauchi,
Bauchi state