GOVERNOR of Rivers State Nyesom Wike has asked Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari to take responsibility for insecurity in the country.
The governor spoke in an address on Tuesday at the commissioning of the 21-kilometre Odufor-Akpoku-Umuoye road in Etche Local Government Area of the state.
Buhari had said he turned back two South-West governors who came to meet him over the killing of farmers by herders in their states.
“I told them you campaigned to be elected and you are elected. I told them go (to) back and sort out themselves,” Buhari said during an interview with Arise TV last week.
However, Wike said it was unconstitutional for the president to tell governors that security issues were left for the states to handle.
“The constitution did not say that. Who is the commander-in-chief? I am not the commander-in-chief; Mr President, you are the commander-in-chief of the armed forces of Nigeria,” Wike said.
He noted that heads of security agencies would not act without getting clearance from the president, adding that governors could not give directives to commissioners of police without the approval of the Inspector-General of Police who was appointed by the president.
Wike asked the president to allow governors to appoint commissioners of police and heads of State Security Service (SSS) by themselves and see if the security situation would not change.
“Allow us to pick who will be in charge; then you will see whether it will be the same thing because they (the security chiefs) cannot act until they take powers from you. We cannot tell them what to do,” the governor said.
Article 6 of the Police Act 2020, as amended, says that the Inspector-General of Police has the mandate to appoint a police commissioner for states.
“The Force shall be under the command of the Inspector-General, and contingents of the Force stationed in a State shall, subject to the authority of the Inspector-General, be under the command of the Commissioner of that State,” the Police Act says.
Lukman Abolade is an Investigative reporter with The ICIR. Reach out to him via [email protected], on twitter @AboladeLAA and FB @Correction94