Human rights lawyer, Femi Falana, has warned that some state governors will use state police as a means of oppression. The Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) made this known in an interview on Channels Television on Friday. He said that provision must be made under the law to prevent such situations.
According to Falana, policing has been decentralised in the country as residential estates and communities have private security outfits with personnel armed with different weapons guarding inhabitants of such communities.
He said the location of state police must be clearly defined to prevent inter-rivalry and clashes between security agents, adding that state police must be a people-police service and not a government-centred one. He added that the success of the country’s policing system depends on its management.
Falana said, “Unfortunately, our governors have allowed the Nigeria Police Force to become the Federal Government Police Force hence the demand for state police.”
“Under Section 216 of the Constitution, the President of the Republic cannot appoint or remove an Inspector General of Police without consulting the Nigeria Police Council.”
“In that 39-member body, 36 of them are chief executives of states. It’s a council where the members should discuss the number of police personnel should be in every state, how the police should be funded and how the police should be managed and administered. But what has happened?”
Falana said though there are other regular security council meetings in the country, the Nigeria Police Council has not been meeting.
Going further, he said “We must go back to the provisions of the Constitution. It’s not unusual in a federation to have federal government police and state police but again, we have to go back to the drawing table and fine tune our policies before we have state police. We must assure our people.
