President Bola Tinubu has been urged to allow for proper scrutiny of the much-talked-about State Police Bill to allow for more robust discussion from all stakeholders.
A lawyer and security policy expert, Dr Charles Omole, gave the advice while featuring on Politics Today which was monitored by Nigerian Tribune on Monday night in Abuja.
While commending the President for coming up with a bill which he described as laudable, Dr Omole charged him (Tinubu) to put together a technical team that will discuss and relate with Nigerians the intricacies surrounding the bill the way the President allowed for debate on the Tax Reform Act headed by Mr Taiwo Oyedele now Nigeria’s Minister of Finance.
Omole added that the issue of State Police is more technical than what people are seeing and saying as he called for careful handling of the issue.
He said, “Mr President, the state policing you are doing is the right decision, but it is a lot more complex than you may have been told. Just like you did with the tax bill, put together a technical team that will be speaking and address concerns across the board on state policing. And also, more importantly, Mr President, be open to internal security reform. This is not just about NPF; if you are talking about state policing reform, it’s about every agency that performs policing functions, and we know from 1976 onwards that our police have been cannibalised, the Nigeria Police Force.
“The question now is, are you giving back to the states the skeleton or are you putting some of the meat back to give to the states? So, this is internal security reform that need to be assessed before you push it to the states. It’s definitely the right policy, it’s the right time and I think the President should be commended for that.”
The guest analyst criticized the reactive nature of the police system in Nigeria, urging for a more proactive approach to achieve better results. He also advocated for the establishment of a well-structured state policing plan that would assist the federal police in addressing crime at the state level and facilitate seamless collaboration with local police forces.
Omole stated, “This speaks to our policing doctrine in Nigeria which is largely reactive. I would want a bit of proactive element built into this and that is there ought to be a requirement that each state must produced and submit a state policing plan to the Federal Government. That state policing plan is this is what I’m going to do in my state over the next it could be yearly… What that immediately shows, it will be able to show Federal Police areas coming down the line, that in eight months time giving this plan, there would be an issue here. So that way you can be proactive in dealing with it.”
“State policing plan is one of the key things that is important here. But also what state policing plan allows for is strategic directive of the governor. The governor cannot direct the CP operationally but can direct the CP strategically. Let me give an example, in the state policing plan, you can identify what are the top five crimes in your state that you want to focus on and it varies from state to state. It’s now possible for the governor to tell the CP… If robbery for example is the number one crime in the policing plan, he can now tell the CP that look in five local governments, robbery has gone up. You need to address it strategically. How he will do it that is left for the CP. State policing plan gives an idea that you know what you are doing. So without state policing plan, all federal police will be doing is reacting after the fact,” the security policy expert added.