Consecutive administrators of the Nigerian Federal Government at the centre had meticulously clung to unitary system of power as provided for them through the military-oriented and bequeathed 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic, which critics paid lip service to its numerous lapses, but actually did nothing to amend or to reject for a brand new people-oriented legal document!

This trend, no doubt had sustained the rot in the polity which allowed for political jobbers to sit tight, perfect all forms of electoral malpractices, ballot box snatching, falsification of election result figures, harassment of electoral officers, and engagement of jobless youths as armed thugs to perpetrate their rigging machineries!

Violation of the ban on vehicular movement on election days with the deliberate intention to overstretch and overwhelm the less than ONE MILLION total figure of the combined armed forces, police and the Para-military from fulfilling their constitutional duties of providing adequate protection for the electorate, election officials and electoral materials/equipments was the order at every election!
And because of the faulty un-amended faulty constitution and electoral laws, most aggrieved losers always lost election petitions up to the apex court while the riggers remained in power to perpetrate more atrocities!

It is therefore no wonder that antagonisms against agitations for devolution of centralised power from federal to federating units, through transfer of authority (1) To establish State Police, (2) Permission to invoke principles of derivation in the extractive sector (mines and minerals, including oil fields, oil mining, geological surveys and natural gas), all of which are itemised under the Exclusive Legislative List; to State Governments usually stemmed from the Executive which would not entertain any infringement on those special rights as constitutionally granted to it!

It is also on record that every consecutive administration from Presidents Aremu Obasanjo to Ebele Jonathan sponsored a national discourse on the above burning issues without tangible success but now, it is imperative that they have to be frontally attacked in view of heightened citizens protests over glaring insecurity across the country in spite of all plausible activities by the present administration to stem the tide!

WHY WOULD THE CENTRE CLING TO POWER WHEN IT IS OBVIOUS THAT THE CURRENT GLOBAL TREND DOES NOT SUPPORT SUCH ARCHAIC POLITICAL ARRANGEMENT?

ACCORDING TO THE US PRESIDENTIAL SYSTEM COPIED BY NIGERIA, STATE POLICE IS EMPOWERED THROUGH THE CONSTITUTIONAL LAW!
Police power, according to US constitutional law, is the capacity of the States to regulate behaviour and enforce order within their territory for the betterment of the health, safety, morals and general welfare of their inhabitants. Police power is defined in each jurisdiction by the legislative body, which determines the public purposes that need to be served by legislation.

According to Wikipedia the Tenth amendment to the US Constitution not delegated to the Federal Government are reserved to the States or to the PEOPLE. This implies that the Federal Government does not possess all possible powers, because most of these are reserved to the State governments and others are reserved to the PEOPLE.
Police power is exercised by the legislative and executive branches of the various states through the enactment and enforcement of laws, but there are checks and balances to ensure that, citizens’ rights and freedoms were not infringed in any form. However, legislations must not be unreasonably arbitrary or oppressive!


CREATION OF STATE POLICE IN NIGERIA NOW IS VERY URGENT AND PARAMOUNT!
Nigeria’s decision on the establishment of STATE POLICE, determines its destiny from now on because government is constitutionally mandated to ensure the security of lives and property of the PEOPLE to whom sovereignty belongs according to the sacred document. The trending insecure environment will fizzle out if care is taken to copy the US template which is working!


IGP’S ADVOCACY IS NOT NEW!
Community policing in Nigeria dates back to time immemorial! It is as old as the nation’s existence. Beginning with the early trading contacts with foreign merchants to the colonial periods before the 1914 Amalgamation of the Northern/Southern Protectorates and beyond to this modern age, the people had always employed the strategy of internal security watch as a means of neighbourhood protection! The Native Police (NA), para-military force from which the present day Nigerian Police Force traced its origin, was functional throughout the periods of colonization and very effective in the discharge of local and internal security duties!
All Inspectors General of Police since the new attempt at democracy from 1999 till date had initiated policies on community policing on the drawing boards but non-implementation was quick to be premised on lack of funds and for over 20 years that security innovation remained all motion without movement!
If all the various para-military forces across Nigeria, Civilian JTF, Hisbah, Amotekun, the South East, the Northern regional security groups and other hundreds of vigilante outfits including day/night guards were not primarily saddled with the duties of policing their various communities, who will the federal law enforcement agents depend on for grassroots intelligence, assistance and collaboration to defeat crimes/terror in cases of internal upheavals and external aggressions?


HOW WILL COMMUNITY POLICING OPERATE WITHOUT A STATE POLICE STRUCTURE?
The Inspector General of Police would prefer that the whole structural Command of the nation’s security architecture remained under his purview in view of the constitutional provision under Section 214 - 216, which states in part that, “......no other police force shall be established for the Federation or any part thereof.......,” but Community Policing would no longer thrive on analogue but digital platform – that is, the bottom up approach that would terminate at the table of the State Police Commissioner who will be the overall commander of all the local security outfits in the State Command and would be answerable to the State Governor and no longer the IGP just as it obtains in the United States!

According to the current IGP, Mohammed,Adamu, the Nigerian Police Force was already in the process of recruiting special constables (about 400,000 volunteers nationwide, between age 17-50), for the initial take-off of community policing throughout the federation. We strongly believe that the Police boss antidote to the current spate of insecurity is a case of administering medicine after the demise of a soul or securing the stable’s gate after the horses have bolted! There can be no going back on the various local security outfits once they have been legalized through their State Assemblies as they have already constituted the needed platforms for the establishment of STATE POLICE in the 36 States of the federation!

We have formally advised the President to urgently push through an Executive Bill to the National Assembly to give legal teeth to the new venture that had been recommended by Governor El Rufai’s APC Committee on Restructuring and True Federalism which concluded its assignment since January 2018!
FEAR OF GOVERNORS MISUSE OF STATE POLICE FOR POLITICAL VENDETTA IS UNTENABLE! The Constitution will take care of checks and balances to ensure non infringement on human rights and freedoms!

IMPLEMENTATION OF THE NATIONAL SECURITY ROADMAP DOCUMENT PROMISES TO BE CITIZEN ORIENTED!
Since the launch of this very important document on Wednesday, 4thDecember, 2019, at the national level, how much information has permeated the entire spectrum of the society at the local government level from where the implementation would commence through the people?

Whereas, President Muhammadu Buhari promised to further enhance social security from the grassroots in a “bottom to top up” approach as we had earlier elucidated, it seemed that stakeholders in the security arrangement are yet to be co-ordinated!
It was disclosed at the launch that a comprehensive approach to address poverty, health care delivery challenges and out-of school-children (particularly the Almajiri System), were all embedded in the new strategy document to safeguard the fast-growing population of the youths since the issues of poverty and illiteracy were synonymously linked to the emergence of outrageous insecurity as being experienced across the nation unceasingly!

This all-important document should be in the market place by now in its translated forms for consumption by the grassroots people who are major stakeholders in the success of Community Policing since all indigene personnel of the Para-military body in each State would be recruited from among them! The buck stops on the table of President Buhari who must take the bull by the horn through a bold and loud support for the establishment of STATE POLICE TODAY!
Further delay will be very dangerous because he has only THREE YEARS AND THREE MONTHS TO END HIS SECOND AND LAST TENURE! He will never have any other opportunity to write his name indelibly in GOLD ever again! “A stitch in time saves nine!”



I am, yours sincerely, Dr. David B.A. Olufon. 08130669886, 08098194390. 08080243066. G-mail- dvdolufon@gmail.com.