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Femi Falana, a human rights attorney, has issued a warning that certain state governors intend to oppress people by using the state police.
Falana said this on Saturday suring an interview session on Channels Television.
According to him, appropriate legal protections are needed to stop governors from using the police force to harass and subjugate political rivals.
Falana claims that because residents of residential estates and villages are protected by private security companies whose members are armed with various weapons, policing in the nation has become more decentralized.
To stop rivalry and more conflicts amongst security personnel, he stated that state police jurisdictions ought to be clearly defined.
He said the success of the country’s policing system depends on its management.
Falana said, “Unfortunately, our governors have allowed the Nigeria Police Force to become the Federal Government Police Force hence the demand for state police.
“Under Section 216 of the Constitution, the President of the Republic cannot appoint or remove an Inspector General of Police without consulting the Nigeria Police Council.”
“In that 39-member body, 36 of them are chief executives of states. It’s a council where the members should discuss the number of police personnel should be in every state, how the police should be funded and how the police should be managed and administered. But what has happened?”
He said, “We must go back to the provisions of the Constitution. It’s not unusual in a federation to have federal government police and state police but again, we have to go back to the drawing table and finetune our policies before we have state police. We must assure our people.
“There are governors in Nigeria that will turn state police into an instrument of oppression because even right now, the federal police is turned into an instrument of oppression.
“So, we must agree that in a Federation, every tier of government, every federating unit should be able to enforce its own laws, with its own security apparatus but you must guarantee that there will be no intimidation or oppression of political opponents, either by the federal government police, state police or even local government police.
“Right now, we deceive ourselves, we already have decentralisation of police; every community, every estate all have their own private security arrangement and majority of them are armed.”
Recall that calls for state police have been on recently, with some governors and regional socio-political groups like Afenifere and Ohanaeze Ndigbo saying it would curb the menacing trend of kidnapping, banditry and sundry crimes.
