FORMER Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu has decried the falling state of the country’s policing system.
He stated this while speaking at the Ikeja chapter of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) on Monday.
He blamed the rising insecurity within the country on the failure of the centralized policing system currently in operation in the country.
“Our policing system has failed woefully. There are no other federating states that have done what we are doing in policing,” he said.
“It is no surprise that with the capsizing of the national police, the nation’s security has also collapsed.
“In an instance where we have decentralised police, we will have a federal police system and 774 police systems in all the 774 local governments in the 36 states and in Abuja.
“The implication, therefore, is that if the federal police fail, we have additional layers in 36 states but right now, they are absent.
“Now that the federal policing have collapsed because they do not have the resources – the funding and the manpower, there is nothing to hold on to.”
The lawmaker’s comment is coming one week after a bill seeking to amend the 1999 Constitution to accommodate the creation of state police passed the second reading at the House of Representatives.
The bill entitled, ‘A Bill for an Act to Alter the Provisions of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999, to Give Legal Backing to State Security Outfit to Complement the Nigeria Police Force,’ was sponsored by Anthony Afe from Delta State.
It seeks to decentralise the current police structure in the country by moving policing from the Exclusive List of the Constitution to the Concurrent List.
Lawmakers also attributed the country’s deteriorating security to the overburdened nature of the police during the presentation and debate of the bill.
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