By Ishola Balogun
& Moses Nosike
There have been comments on the issue and we have been watching. The first thing that we should understand is to know the ratio of the population visa-vis the Police. Is it appropriate?  Because of the insecurity situation in the country, every border should be properly policed.

If the Nigerian Police can cover it, then it is fine.  If they cannot, there is nothing wrong with the issue of State Police.

It is just that people are afraid of what will happen with the coming of State Police but appropriate legislation can allay those fears.

Every Nigerian deserved to be properly protected by the police.  The option is that you either empower Nigerian Police appropriately, recruit more so that they can reach every nook and cranny of the country or we can do what they did in the United States. There are federal and states Police and they are working very fine. What Nigerians want is to be properly protected by the police.

Fasoranti, Fasehun, Okoye, Kachako and Lekwot

At the moment, the Nigerian Police are seen on the ground but they are not properly equipped.  The Nigerian Police are faced with many problems in terms of remuneration, accomodation and other fringe benefits.  If the government can solve those problems so as to make them cover all areas of the country, then it will be fine.

Again, a proper law should be made so that every state government can contribute in the financing of the Police affairs.  So, either ways, we can make them effective. In any case, the Police Force is not anybody’s private property. It is to protect the intergrity of the whole country.

The clamour  is untimely— Barr Chike Okoye

To my mind, the current grow      ing clamour for a Constitutional amendment allowing for the establishment of respective police force for the thirty-six federating Nigerian states, is untimely, self-serving and dangerous in view of the fact that an average Nigerian politician has not yet risen above his overriding desire to abuse political power, however briefly he may have it.

Such a power in the hands of an unscrupulous state executive Governor, when reinforced by the Constitutional immunity shielding him and his Deputy from criminal prosecution while their tenure endures, would prove a deadly tool of political repression, arbitrariness, election-rigging and the attendant unspeakable vices which the Governor may visit on political opponents and both actual and imagined enemies. What is more, most of the states can ill-afford the expense of maintaining a state police going by the recent experience of the Minimum Wage  issue, which a number of states found hard to implement.

The major problem we have with our police force does not rest on decentralizing it but that of thorough reforms by way of de-colonization (the present police force being merely an offshoot of the brutal Royal West African Frontier Force, RWAFF, which was used by the British to torment the colonized peoples).

Emphases should rather be laid on restructuring and sanitizing the police force as it is presently constituted vis-a-vis re-orientation of the police officers and men toward a more efficient crime fighting and a society-friendly organization; improving the welfare of the terribly demoralized officers and rank-and-file; ridding the police organization of the bad elements that infiltrated and have now swollen its ranks; and amending the 1999 Constitution by giving the Governors full powers as chief security officers of their individual states and to exercise lawful control over the Police Commissioners.

With the level of our political development, state police may readily be subject to abuses by the Governors, who may use it as an instrument of oppression and sundry excesses that attend unrestrained use of official political power, and the contemporary appetite for the dismemberment of Nigeria, which ultimately guarantees the state Governors a firmer grip on power and its benefits.

For now, it is unfortunate to even moot the idea of state police in this country, since our political class is not yet ripe for the existence of multi-parallel police forces, quite unlike the advanced democracies like the USA, Canada, etc, which the proponents of the creation of state police seek to ape. Until the Nigerian political class evolves towards a more mature and tolerant level of political development, the necessity of a state police shall be founded just on utopia.

Let Nigeria Police be — Senator Isa Kachako

I don’t think that is the right thing for us to do.  It will further compound the problem of ethnicity, sectionalisim and will not give us as a people a sense of belonging and unity.  Nobody should try to polirise this nation by bringing any idea that is not in concert with federalism.

It is not a sign of unity that officers of the Nigerian Police would be asked to go and serve in their various states. Sooner or later, they will begin to agitate for regional or state Army.  It is not ideal for us as a people.  Nigeria is not yet ripe for that, I don’t support it. Let Nigerian Police be Nigerian Police. It will only bring about disunity of purpose.

State Police is the way to go — Chief Federick Fasehun

The state of insecurity in the country is very precarious.  Everything to make the police very effective must be worked out and the creation of State Police is one of them.

It will undoubtedly enhance security in every state.  We have always argue that state Police will know the hide-outs of criminals, their homes and families as well as their method of operations.  It is only the local police will be able to know all these things.

If you bring sombody from Sokoto State to police Gbaramatu in the Niger Delta, he will not be effective because he knows little about the area. You need the son of the soil to make it work.

The argument that they may be used as personal tools by the state chief executive does not hold water because Nigeria has gone past all that.  Just like we can say that anybody who misuse public funds will face the wrath of the law.  The law is there to take its course on those who do that. I think Nigeria has gone past all that.

I dont think it will work – Chief Reuben  Fasoranti

The agitation that governors should take control of the police in their states has been on for a very long time, but I dont think it will work in this country because people have not really learnt to live up to their expectations.

The aspect of it I dont like is the possibilities of using it to feather their own nests. You know the Nigeria factor, after some time they become instrument of the hands of the state.

The Police themselves are immersed in this situation because of ineffectiveness. You know what the Police are doing, until we have a better trained police like the ones we have abroad and possibly making them to be independent, we will still continue the way we are.

Nigeria, not mature to handle state police —Akinyemi

For Chief Olayide Akinyemi, Baale of Pako, Igbo-ora, Oyo State, agitation for state police is myopic and should be discussed in the Nigerian context.

Creation of state police is not new but the abuse of it politically is what people should taking about. My advise is that government should improve on the Nigerian police so that they cam be more productive. But if there is state police, the government of that state will continue to use that against the people because they might have it as a personal weapon for them.

I can only advocate that the Nigerian police should be maintained. And government must have a close watch on them. So, that everybody will have his or her freedom unmolested. The federal government should control the Nigerian police force. Nigeria is not mature to handle state police