Former Senate Deputy President, Ike Ekweremadu, has said Nigeria may continue to contend with security issues if it will not stop running a single central police system.
Ekweremadu, who spoke in Adamawa State on Sunday, said the current federal police formation does not fit and will not work with the federal system of government which the country practices.
The former deputy Senate President who fielded questions from newsmen on the side of a church thanksgiving service he attended in the Bekaji area of Yola, stressed that Nigeria needs to embrace systems which work in other parts of the world.
He said, “We must do what other countries do so that we can get the result they get. The problem with our security setup is that we forget we are running a federal system of government. There is nowhere in the world where a federal government runs a unitary police.”
He said the country needs a federal police system which allows the various states, local government areas and even corporations to own and run their own police units.
He added that Nigeria would then establish a federal police service commission to monitor the federal police and set standards for other police units to prevent such units from abusing their powers.
He said the implication will be that Nigeria will have at least 36 police units apart from the federal police so that if a particular state has a security situation that its police cannot handle, the state could get help from the police of one or two neighbouring states.
“What is happening right now is that the central police system that we run has collapsed. That’s why we bring in soldiers to do the work of the police,” Sen Ekweremadu said.
The former Senate deputy president was in Adamawa State to be part activities that a friend of his, Engr Peter Aniobi, organised in celebration of the birth of a child.
