36 Assembly speakers demand state police to curb insecurity

SPEAKERS of the Houses of Assembly under the aegis of the Conference of the Speakers of State Legislatures of Nigeria have identified establishment of State police as the best way to tackle the growing insecurity across the country.

A communiqué issued after their three-day 1st Quarter General Meeting held in Bauchi, with 30 states represented, and read by the body’s chairman, Abubakar Suleiman, stated:

“The conference decries the spate of insecurity in the country and while commending the Federal Government on its efforts at fighting insecurity in the country, the conference calls on the Federal Government to tinker with the security architecture in the country to reflect the demographic reality of our country.

“In other words, the conference advocates community policing or state police as the best way out of the problems.”

Suleiman, who is also the Speaker of the Bauchi State House of Assembly, said the conference also pleaded with the Parliamentary Staff Association of Nigeria that has been on an indefinite strike to exercise restraint.

He noted that a committee had been set up to dialogue with the association with a view to resolving the lingering issues that led to the industrial action.

Though they didn’t mention it in their communiqué, the speakers with this call may be doing the bidding of governors in their various states.

Almost all the governors of the states in the federation have lamented their helplessness in the face of insecurity in their states.

They usually attribute this to the fact that they are not in control of the police in their various states.

Recently, Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State said it was a misnomer to call him the Chief Security Officer of his state, preferring to be called the “Chief Logistics Officer.”

In a similar vein, his Kaduna State counterpart, Nasir El-Rufai at a recent lecture asked the Federal Government to allow the establishment of State Police; he even went a step further by demanding ressource control by each state where natural resources are found.

“I would recommend the following immediate decisions and actions by the federal and state governments, with the support of our civil society and all well-meaning Nigerians. The first is to implement the three key devolution proposals that I mentioned: Give us state police now; vest all minerals in the states now; and decentralise our judiciary now – not later.

“There are certain things governors cannot do. Some of them we have alluded to by saying we don’t control security agencies. So, you are chief security officer, but you can call the CP (commissioner of police) and if the IG (Inspector General) says, ‘Don’t talk to him,’ that is it.” El-Rufai had said at the event.