Niger State governor and Chairman, Northern States Governors Forum (NSGF), Dr. Mu’azu Babangida Aliyu, has said that the forum may reconsider its earlier hard stance to the creation of state Police.
He stated this at the weekend when members of the House of Representatives Committee on Millennium Development Goals (MDG) led by its Chairman, Honourable Alhasan Ado Dogoa, paid him a courtesy call at his private residence at Tunga area of Minna, the state capital.
“When I was told that a particular State House of Assembly has been taken over recently by the security agencies and I said look, I was one of the governors that said there should be no state Police because of my fears that others may misuse it. But then, here am I like a sitting Duck , even though I am the Chief Security Officer of Niger State, many of the security agencies only take their instructions from Abuja. So if I am not in the good book of anybody in Abuja, then it means that I can just be picked up just like that. But if I have my state Police, we will draw the line” said Aliyu.
He argued that in a federal system of government like Nigeria, the citizens must find ways to check those perceived excesses of their leaders, adding that if the state Police was one of the ways to check those excesses, so be it.
Accordingly he said,” If for example, there is a state Police, they cannot go beyond certain issues because you have in place the Federal Police. And in all Federal systems, there are situations whereby you localized certain activities like the state Police cannot be involved in issues like the genera elections l and other federal things like being involved directly in investigating criminal activities or criminal issues.”
Speaking further he said, “domestically, that you have what we can call local laws for implementation purposes or at least being present in some particular places . But as of now I am not saying we are supporting or we are not supporting other groups as we need to go back on our earlier position on such matters . But one of the issues why many of us said apart from the fears of misuse of the state Police if created , it is also a question of resources to sustain the state Police because you need to train the work force.”
Aliyu, also highlighted a situation where the country is under Policed and based his argument on the fact that there are about 371,000 policemen in the Force with about 100,000 of them allegedly doing domestic jobs with public office holders like Governors, Commissioners, Ministers, Judges, Senators and other principal members of the national assembly among others.
“And by the time you really see the people doing the actual police works , may be they may be about 120,000,00 policemen to 160million people or there about. And that is the problem with Nigeria and we keep saying that the military is not meant for the kind of domestic issues we deploy them to do across the country because they are meant for the protection of the territorial integrity of the nation”.
your contributions are always,self centered.Governor Aliyu.
Governor aliyu always thinks through his mouth!what a sudden realisation,after taking a hard stance.