THE chicken is coming home to roost at last. For the first time ever, the political leadership of this country has flashed the green light over the idea of decentralising the federal monopoly of policing in Nigeria.
After President Bola Tinubu's meeting with state governors last week, the Minister of Information, Mohammed Idris Malagi, announced that the Federal Government was considering the idea of approving state police. More meetings are to take place to give it a deeper look. Progressives who have forever canvassed for changes towards "true federalism" to get the country working properly made state police a pivotal issue in this campaign.
But the conservatives - those who want things to remain unchanged - firmly kicked against it, expressing the fear that it could lead to "national disintegration". Now, even the most conservative among us have finally admitted that what we have is no longer tenable. With a population of about 226 million and a poorly-motivated police strength of just about 371,000 (a third of whom are on VIP duties), our single, central police command structure can no longer cope.
Unlike before, new violent crimes such as kidnapping, banditry, cultism, hard drug use and terrorism are now on our table. These criminals are armed with sophisticated assault weaponry and occupying ungoverned spaces in the forests. Even the Army is finding the situation difficult to handle. Well-trained, armed and motivated state police outfits will help to remove these undesirable elements from the bushes and allow farmers return to their farms.
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This is the only way we can restore food security. State police will properly domesticate law enforcement away from the current colonial style which is failing. It will give the Governors a fair chance to live up to their constitutional tag as Chief Security Officers of their states. Those who are arguing that state police will further empower the Governors to suppress their political opponents are placing politics above security of lives and property.
In any case, even without state police, the Governors have elevated themselves to tinpot emperors with the use of federal police, the military, armed thugs and vigilantes. State police will bring these under constitutional arrangement. A Governor can always be called to account when his immunity expires. We believe that, given the emergency security situation we find ourselves in, a constitution amendment to enshrine state policing in the Constitution can be fast-tracked.
Once the president reaches broad consensus with the governors and other stakeholders, a constitution amendment bill can complete its relay race from the National Assembly to the State Assemblies and land on the president's desk within a month. Policing is essentially a local affair, and the best people to police a locality are usually people from that locality. Nobody can stop an idea whose time has come.
