-Says:Regional Police Only Way Out
As Nigeria continues to actively explore the creation of subnational or state police to enhance law enforcement responsiveness at the state level due to emerging security challenges like kidnapping, terrorism, banditry and communal conflicts, Abuja based Lawyer and Security expert Mr Chyma Anthony has warned against the establishment of state police describing it as a project that would turn out to be counterproductive at the short and long run.
Anthony who spoke to this reporter on Wednesday argued that any Police reform and Act amendment geared towards creating state police will be an invitation to the worst security situations across the states in Nigeria.
According to him, political actors in Nigeria especially the governors have this unchallengeable culture of impunity hiding under immunity to control and administer their states alone without recourse to the theory of separation of power. “These governors are so undemocratic in their approach to governance in their various states, they suppress opposing forces, hunting and hounding them even with our current federal police and other law enforcement agencies. Imagine what would happen if they have the powers to appoint Police Commissioners, Area Commanders, DPOs and other rank and file personnel.
State Police at the long run would become a local vigilante thing without serious funding from the governors yet with the enormous task of hunting and ultimately silencing members of the opposition parties”.
The APGA Senate candidate for Imo East Senatorial District in the 2023 election however proposed Police Act amendment and reforms aimed at creating subnational or regional police structures in the six geo political zones of the country.
On the funding of the proposed regional police, Mr Chyma Anthony suggested a regional police basket fund with at-source-deductions from the federal allocations acruable to all the states in each region.
He remarked that coordinated regional funding structure deducted at source would make it a no one man show or something the regional governors will easily abandon probably because of selfish considerations.
When asked if there are African countries operating regional police structure, the doctorate degree holder in Security and Strategy studies revealed that
South Africa operates the South African Police Service with a provincial structure of police stations, which can function with some level of regional autonomy under the national framework .
He equally explained that Zambia even as unitary state with police primarily operating nationally had been divided administratively into provinces and districts.
“We really need to decentralize our security system, we have to re-draw and restructure our security architecture in the face of the endless killings, kidnapping, armed robbery, terrorism and banditry that have certainly overwhelmed our security agencies.
President Tinubu and the National Assembly should jettison the idea of state police and go for regional policing. State Police will be counterproductive at the long run as our governors may not fund it well, yet would want to explore and deploy same for personal and political vendetta”, Chyma Anthony concluded.
