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State police solution to Nigeria’s insecurity – Doyin Okupe
Dr. Doyin Okupe
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By Adeyemi Adeleye
Former Director-General of the Labour Party (LP) Presidential Campaign, Dr Doyin Okupe, says the creation of state police will help address the security challenges facing the country.
Okupe gave the view in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Sunday in Lagos.
He was reacting to calls by some stakeholders for the adoption of state police, to address the security challenges in the country.
The constitution only empowers the Nigeria Police Force(NPF), a federal police, to be in charge of policing in all the states of the federation.
Prof. Pat Utomi, a political economist, is one of the stakeholders calling for the adoption of state police.
Okupe, former National Publicity Secretary of the defunct National Republican Convention (NRC), said central police had failed and that states should be empowered constitutionally to take care of their security.
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According to him, the excuse that governors will abuse state police is not a justification for not having a policing system, that can guarantee security of lives and property.
“We only need to find a constitutional way to stop abuse by the state governors.
“We cannot build and encourage wrong and not working, just because we fear certain things. Policing should be totally and completely decentralised,” he said.
Okupe also canvassed that each of the zones in the country should have its own military, with its own chief of army staff, to strengthen security.
“Each of the zones can have its own army and we have a central command somewhere, where each zonal chief of army staff links up.
“In this situation, the issue of coup does not arise again.
“If there is a war, all the zones will contribute soldiers to prosecute the war and after that, everybody goes back to their zones. These are the things we need,” Okupe said.
