The Speaker of the Oyo State House of Assembly, Mr Adebo Ogundoyin, has called for the establishment of state police to curb the increasing insecurity situation in Nigeria.
He recently revealed that the current lack of security poses a major challenge to Nigeria’s economic development.
Speaking to reporters in Ibadan, Adebo stated that statistics prove that at least 700,000 people have lost their lives needlessly to different cases of insecurity like insurgency, farmers’ headers clash and other violence.
According to him, such a statistic is a major tragedy for the nation, hence the need to give more responsibility to the states to fix the country’s security problems once and for all.
“Losing 700,000 people is not only alarming but also a tragedy.
We have to identify that the primary role of government is the protection of lives and property.
In a situation where the government cannot secure lives and properties, that means it has failed in its primary role.
Giving more responsibility to the subnational, which is the states, in terms of security, will address some of the security issues in Nigeria,” he said.
Adebo further emphasised that the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) has been overstretched with its responsibilities, stressing the need for state police.
He concluded by saying that the actions of the present government and the National Assembly show that the country is leaning towards the state police idea.
“I believe that posture and body language of current administration and the National Assembly shows that we are leaning towards the situation whereby we will have state police.
We understand that there is a risk factor to mismanagement of state police, but we must not condemn state police due to some personal interests.
There can be hierarchy and modes of operations to check and balance the situation.
With the success recorded so far with Western Nigeria Security Network (WNSN) codenamed “Amotekun”, state police is possible,” he added.
