Former Deputy President of the Senate, Ike Ekweremadu, has emphasized the need for the decentralization of police in Nigeria in order to realize the country of our dream.
Ekweremadu,who speaking on “Nigerian State and the Call for Restructuring’’ at the opening of Law Week 2021 of the Ikeja branch of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA),said the development was necessary because Nigeria’s policing system had failed to tackle insecurity.
He noted that the decentralisation of the police had become expedient in the face of rising wave of banditry and kidnapping across the country.
“Our policing system has failed woefully. There are no other federating states that have done what we are doing in policing.
“It is no surprise that with the capsizing of the national police, the nation’s security has also collapsed,’’ he said.
According to him,restructuring the police was no longer a matter of choice but a matter of urgency.
He added:“In an instance where we have a decentralised police, we will have a federal police system and 774 police systems in all the 774 local governments in the 36 states and in Abuja.The implication, therefore, is that if the federal police fail, we have additional layers in 36 states; but right now, they are absent.Now that the federal policing have collapsed because they do not have the resources, the funding and the manpower, there is nothing to hold on to”
