Senator  Basiru Ajibola Explains Why He Backs Calls For State Police

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Chairman, Senate Committee on Diaspora, NGOs and CSOs,  Senator Surajudeen Ajibola Basiru said the time is ripe to seriously confront the reality of insecurity in the country by addressing the urgency of introducing state police.

Learned  Ajibola who stated this in Ilorin as Guest Lecturer at the Lecture/Awards event organized by the Correspondents’  Chapel, Kwara State NUJ   had his lecture entitled   ‘Democracy and The Rule of Law’.

‘I have called for the creation of State Police. Even as Attorney-General of the State of Osun, I had experiences that suggested the necessities for state police.

Again, it is still not too much to lend more voice to this call and I think the present security challenges we are faced with has made it more than a call but a necessity which the government must seriously look into.

Policing a nation or community is said to be local and cannot be best solved by the centralized system of policing that we operate. The benefits of state police among others include  the fact that such police unit being very close to the grassroots will effectively assess crime and other associated situations and respond rapidly to security challenges.

It will also address the serious problem of dearth of manpower under which a policeman or officer will have to secure more than 700 persons.

It was in this wise  that I sponsored a Bill seeking to alter the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 Cap. 23, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, 2004 to delete item 45 from the Exclusive Legislative List and to make Police a concurrent matter, thereby granting the National Assembly and the State Houses of Assembly the power to make laws with respect to the creation, formation and the control of Police and ensure effective local policing in the country’, he said.

Ajibola also noted   that the bill has passed first reading in the senate.

‘This Bill has passed through the first reading in the Senate and awaiting further legislative actions.  Lest we forget, State Police is not a new phenomenon in the security architecture of Nigeria. Section 105(7) of the 1963 constitution permitted Regional Legislatures to make provisions for the maintenance of state police.

The United States, Germany, Australia, Brazil, Switzerland, Canada also allow their federating units to exercise authority on the issue of policing to complement the efforts of the central police command’, he stated.