By Samuel Oyadongha, Yenagoa
The upsurge in crime across the country has been blamed on the absence of community policing.

Chief whip of Bayelsa State House of Assembly, Hon. Jonathan Obuebite in an interview in Yenagoa said the presidential system as practiced in the industrialized world recognizes community policing alongside federal policing.

The lawmaker dismissed the argument that the process would be hijacked by the politicians noting that the life span of community policing surpasses that of politicians.

He argued, “the policemen that we have today, are they not from the state? Community policing is where in your area you know everybody that is from your community and as a law enforcement agent from that state that has the responsibility that the people know you and if you are doing something wrong, the people know your family, they know your house, you will be called to question.

“When you bring somebody who is not part of a particular environment, he will come there and do whatever he thinks and go back because what happens in that society does not concern him. In a situation where you have state police, you still have Federal Police that does not mean that there will be no Federal Police.

“When your right is being infringed and you think that the state police is not effective, you take it to the federal police.”

Democracy, he said is fashioned along the culture of the people adding that democracy in Nigeria was not being practiced the way it ought to be.

“In the United State of America, the state police work alongside the federal Police, but our own case everything is concentrated at the centre. We must decentralized governance. I believe in decentralization of governance. I believe so much in it.

“There is no reason of having Ministry of Works at the federal level; rather what we should have is department of works which constitutional role is to supervise the activities of the Ministry of Works at the state level.

“We have had an instance whereby a contract was awarded to a contractor that had little or no knowledge about Bayelsa State and at the end of the day the money approved was not enough to execute the project at hand,” he said adding that if such project was awarded by the state Ministry of Works, such problem would not arise.