“I am an advocate for it. I believe we needed it like yesterday. And the interesting thing is that we have the Neighborhood Watch and it is still functional, about 6,000 of them. The good news is that I have given approval for us to recruit additional 4,000 of them. And this is job for our youths, our able-bodied men.”

RECENTLY, faced with escalating violence across Nigeria, the president, Bola Tinubu, reportedly agreed with state governors to establish state police. The news excited those calling for state police in Nigeria. But the agitation for state police is misguided; it is based on shallow reasoning, not on a rational, hard-nosed analysis of the potential consequences.  To […]

“It is the job of the police to maintain law and order. We have a population of over 200m people but we have a police strength that is less than 400,000. State Police should be created to address the internal security challenges of Nigeria.”

THE chicken is coming home to roost at last. For the first time ever, the political leadership of this country has flashed the green light over the idea of decentralising the federal monopoly of policing in Nigeria. After President Bola Tinubu’s meeting with state governors last week, the Minister of Information, Mohammed Idris Malagi, announced […]

“The state police will be used by the governors to persecute the opposition,to harass ‘non indigenes’,to rig elections and to counter the federal police in cases of conflict of interest between the federal government and the state.”