The Leader of the Senate, Senator Opeyemi Bamidele, has provided further details on how the proposed state police services would be insulated from the abuse of some political actors, adding that their funding should be a first-line charge in the ongoing amendment to the 1999 Constitution.
Bamidele, also the Vice Chairman of the Senate Committee on the Review of the 1999 Constitution, revealed this on Wednesday.
He also warned that business, cabals, criminals and some other organisations could equally abuse the state police services if their financial independence was not guaranteed.
He pointed out this measure in a statement by his Directorate on Media and Public Affairs on Wednesday while acknowledging various concerns, which key stakeholders had expressed on the state police bill.
Bamidele also acknowledged that nearly all public concerns on the state police proposal “are well founded and obviously cannot be swept under the carpet considering their weight and enormity”.
He observed that a lot of these concerns “are informed by what has happened under the First Republic when the 1960 and 1963 Constitutions accorded the regional authorities the powers to establish police force for its province or any part of its province”.
Considering the gravity of these concerns, he explained that the National Assembly had been developing a multi-tiered guardrail or safeguard that would emphasise personnel’s discipline; encourage institutional independence and fiscal autonomy.
He pointed out the resolve of the National Assembly to make the funding of the state police services first-line charge enshrined in the law of the country for state police service the way it was in the judiciary.
He explained that the funding of the judiciary “is provided for in the 1999 Constitution.
“The Chief Justice of Nigeria, for instance, does not have to take her file to the President for approval on every procurement unlike a minister or any member of the Federal Executive Council that must secure presidential approval to spend any money.
“That is why we called it a first line charge.
“In other words, the Commissioner of Police and State Police Service Commission must have a guaranteed source of funds provided for in the 1999 Constitution in a way that the police chief will not be subject to the whims and caprices of a state governor.
“Part of the critical issue we must resolve, even in amending the 1999 Constitution, is to guarantee the financial independence of state police services.
“In other words, it should not be at the discretion of a governor of a state entirely whether he wants to fund state police service or not.
“If a state police service is not responding well to the directives of a governor, he may choose not to fund it.
“We must prevent such a situation.
“We are, therefore, under the obligation to make provision for a certain percentage of a state budget specifically for the operations of state police services. Access to funds must be clearly spelt out.”
Bamidele further assured Nigerians that the National Assembly would establish a state police service that would be accountable to the people and that all issues raised by stakeholders would be addressed in the new law.
He emphasised the need to address the issue of funding with pragmatism, noting that if the federation created a state police service that was not well funded, it would be difficult for them to perform their constitutional mandates effectively.
He explained what the National Assembly was trying to achieve with the ongoing constitutional review, which according to him, was to move the Exclusive Legislative List in which policing powers are domiciled in the federal government to the Concurrent Legislative List, where state governments could also establish their own police.
He also observed that those who expressed concerns “only talked of political abuse.
“But it is more than political abuse.
“If a state police service is not well funded, it is not only political actors that can abuse state police services.
“Business class can also abuse it. Some other organisations, even criminals or cabals, can abuse state police service because it is a question of ‘he who pays the piper dictates the tune’.
“If a state police service is not well funded by any means, we have a situation where it may as well be a highway to nowhere.
“That is one thing all of us must prevent.”
