Some governors will persecute people with state police – Falana

Femi Falana, a human rights attorney, has issued a warning that certain state governors intend to oppress people by using the state police.

This was said by Falana, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), in a Friday interview on Channels Television.

According to him, appropriate legal protections are needed to stop governors from using the police force to harass and subjugate political rivals.

Falana claims that because residents of residential estates and villages are protected by private security companies whose members are armed with various weapons, policing in the nation has become more decentralized.

He added that state police must be a people-police agency rather than one that is centered on the government and that its jurisdictions must be clearly defined to avoid rivalry and more altercations between security personnel.

According to him, the administration of the nation’s police force determines its level of success.

Falana said, “Unfortunately, our governors have allowed the Nigeria Police Force to become the Federal Government Police Force hence the demand for state police.

“Under Section 216 of the Constitution, the President of the Republic cannot appoint or remove an Inspector General of Police without consulting the Nigeria Police Council.”

“In that 39-member body, 36 of them are chief executives of states. It’s a council where the members should discuss the number of police personnel should be in every state, how the police should be funded and how the police should be managed and administered. But what has happened?”

Falana stated that the Nigeria Police Council has not met, despite the fact that other security councils throughout the nation hold regular sessions.

He said, “We must go back to the provisions of the Constitution. It’s not unusual in a federation to have federal government police and state police but again, we have to go back to the drawing table and finetune our policies before we have state police. We must assure our people.

“There are governors in Nigeria that will turn state police into an instrument of oppression because even right now, the federal police is turned into an instrument of oppression.

“So, we must agree that in a Federation, every tier of government, every federating unit should be able to enforce its own laws, with its own security apparatus but you must guarantee that there will be no intimidation or oppression of political opponents, either by the federal government police, state police or even local government police.

“Right now, we deceive ourselves, we already have decentralisation of police; every community, every estate all have their own private security arrangement and majority of them are armed.”

Remember that there have been recent demands for state police, backed by local socio-political organizations like Ohanaeze Ndigbo and Afenifere as well as several governors, who claimed that the police would stop the alarming trend of banditry, abduction, and other miscellaneous crimes.

In mid-February, state police were agreed upon by President Bola Tinubu and the governors of the 36 states as a means of addressing the nation’s growing security concerns.

Approximately one month later, sixteen governors reported to the National Economic Council (NEC) endorsing the establishment of state police and amending the 1999 Constitution to permit the same.

However, the remaining 20 governors’ choices have not yet been made public.