The Senate on Thursday called for the decentralisation of the Nigeria Police and the recruitment of many police personnel so as to tackle the problems of insecurity, especially the recent killings of innocent people by suspected cattle rustlers in the north central part of the country.
The position taken by the senate was sequel to the motion on matter of urgent importance on recent attacks and killings in many parts of north central zone sponsored by Senator Barnabas Gemade and five other senators.
The senate observed that the recent security challenges in the country, with particular reference to the activities of Boko Haram and the Fulani cattle rustlers were pointers to the prediction by the Intelligence department of the United States that Nigeria would disintegrate in 2015.
The senate presided over by the Deputy Senate President, Senator Ike Ekweremadu mandated the Senate Committees on Security and Intelligence, Defence, Army, Police Affairs and Interior to undertake a fact finding mission and report back to the senate.
The Red Chambers noted that the principal purpose of government both as established by the Constitution and in political science was for the protection of lives and property of citizens, adding that it was part of the social contract.
“If we have devoted the whole day as we have done now to dealing with the issue of insecurity in Nigeria, we are living up to the expectation of the ordinary people of Nigeria, for us to show concern for the general insecurity in the country.
“Many years ago, as traditional people, we had our own internal mechanism of dealing with this same situations, but with civilisation and interaction with other people and the general criminality pervading the whole world we are now infested with this virus of criminality in our country.
“And that calls for prompt action for us to do what other countries are doing in order to combat this menace. So I do believe that a country as big as Nigeria needs to effect its security. And just as have been mentioned, it would be difficult for us to afford effective security if we continue to use the type of policing we are having in Nigeria presently.
“We run a federal system of government and it’s completely unacceptable in a federal system for us to have a federal system and for us to also have a centralised Police. Policemen are not magicians. There is no way a policeman can stay in one kilometre and know when a crime is being committed in another kilometre.
“We must be able to provide sufficient Police personnel that should be at least one policeman per hundred metres away. And this can only be achieved if we decentralise our Police, ensuring that we have state Police and possibly local Police that is well coordinated and regulated.
“We had problem in the past in this area because they were not well regulated and they were not coordinated. I think time has come for us to reflect on this and see how we can provide efficient security for our people.
“And our Police as it is now need to be more trained and then they will be able to ensure that the laws are enforced no matter who is involved. So if we do some of these and all that we have said here, I am sure that we would be able to recover our country from the doomsday that is being predicted,” Ekweremadu stated.
Senator George Sekibo, PDP, Rivers East noted that there were signs that the country was heading for disintegration, even as he blamed senators for not doing enough to talk to their constituents on some of these security challenges.
He said, “I have the fears, the fears I have are these, that Nigeria today as we are, we are at war, this country is at war against itself, who is bringing the war, I don’t know, either it is because of political activities and power is not in their hands and then they encourage people to cause disturbance and then to shake up the country.
