Arewa Youths Reject Creation Of State Police

The creation of state police, as recommended by Governor Nasir El-Rufai committee on true federalism, has been rejected by the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF).

ACF’s rejection of state police establishment came on Monday, about six days after governors from 36 Nigerian states endorsed it.

The pan-Northern socio-political organisation claims that if the state police gets fully approved, sitting governors would use it to persecute opposition in states.

“Given the experiences where state governments use state electoral commissions and kill democracy at local government levels where no opposition party wins a seat in the local government council, there is the high possibility of state governments abusing state police with dire consequences, especially in states with many ethnic groups and religions,” the group said in a statement by its Secretary General, Anthony Sani

Meanwhile, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo had said at a recent security summit organised by the Nigerian Senate that “we cannot police a country the size of Nigeria centrally from Abuja. State police and other community policing methods are clearly the way to go.”

Osinbajo had said, ““For a country our size, to meet the one policeman to 400 persons according to the UN prescribed ratio, we would require almost triple the number of our current police force. Far more funding for the military and security agencies is required,” adding that “The nature of our security challenges are complex. Securing Nigeria’s over 900sq/km and its 180 million people requires far more men and materials than we have at the moment. It also requires a continual re-engineering of our security architecture and strategies. This has to be a dynamic process.”