Falana advocates cautious implementation of State Police

Falana, a highly respected Senior Advocate, spoke on Channels Television’s “Inside Sources With Laolu Akande” on Friday night.

He acknowledged that state police are common in federations, but stressed the need for clear policies before implementation. “We must revisit the Constitution,” Falana said. “State police are feasible, but we need to ensure public trust by refining our policies beforehand.

“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 finetune our policies before we have state police. We must assure our people.”

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He also noted that “there are governors in Nigeria that will turn state police into an instrument of oppression because even right now, the federal police is turned into an instrument of oppression.
“So, we must agree that in a federation, every tier of government, every federating unit should be able to enforce its own laws, with its own security apparatus but you must guarantee that there will be no intimidation or oppression of political opponents, either by the Federal Government police, state police or even local government police.

“Right now, we deceive ourselves. We already have decentralisation of police; every community, every estate all have their own private security arrangement, and the majority of them are armed.”

His comments suggest a belief that a well-designed state police system could benefit Nigeria, but only if implemented with careful consideration for potential pitfalls.

The move for state policing has stirred more conversations and debates in recent times in Nigeria due to the spate of kidnappings, banditry, terrorism and other violent crimes in many states of the federation.

Some states and regions in the country have created different security outfits to tackle the wave of crimes in their domain. These include the Civilian Joint Task Force in Borno State, the Amotekun Corps in the South-West geopolitical zone, Ebube Agu in the South-East, Benue Guards in the North Central State, Community Protection Guards in Zamfara, Community Watch Corps in Katsina, the Neighbourhood Watch in Plateau, state-backed vigilante outfits in Niger and Bauchi, amongst others.

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