Mike Okiro, a former Inspector-General of Police (IGP), has said that the proposed establishment of state police is the way forward to effectively improve police operations and ensure timely response to emergencies and crime, news.ng reports.
Okiro, in an interview on Arise Television on Monday morning, while backing state police, said the decentralisation of the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) is on course, given the geographical terrain of the country.
According to him, if the NPF is decentralised, 60% of the workforce should go to the states, while the remaining 40% should remain under federal control.
The former police chief noted that a paucity of funds may have caused the security agency to be inefficient in its operations.
He said, “Let me show the borders to all at the same time. Let’s talk about 60% of the policemen go to states, 30% to thereabouts. That is proper because Nigeria is so wide, geographically, ethnically, and religiously.
“The federal government has not been able to equip the police properly, maybe because of the budget; the federal government has a lot of things to do.”
According to him, with the establishment of state police, in which the governors will have a greater percentage of control, it will create healthy competition among the states in terms of performance.
For the sustainability of the new police formation, Okiro suggested knowledge sharing, which involves culture, language, and communities.
“If new decentralisation comes in, and a part of the police is being guided and also taken care of by the states, I think it will be better, because there will be competition among the states to see which state will do better in terms of policing.
“A policeman from a river state performs better than taking a policeman from a non-riverine area, he does not understand the language, nor the culture of course, he cannot perform.”
“There should be that synergy between the IG, the federal government, local governors, and state police. There could be some cross-border crimes that cannot allow only a state to investigate.
“Before I was against state police, I proposed regional police, but I felt that people in that geopolitical zone have common language, the same thing I have with state police. State police perform better than the federal police,” he said.
