SECURITY ALERT WITH JIDE

Fashola, Others Differ On State Police.

The Lagos State Governor, Babatunde Fashola has called for proactive measures and changes in the modus operandi of the police force.
The governor also said the federal government- controlled police force failed woefully on the serious business of checkmating the activities of criminals, fraudsters, armed robbers and other deterrents.
Represented by Major Tunde Panus, special adviser on security at the Civil Society Panel on Police Reform at Lagos Airport Hotel in Ikeja, Fashola insisted that the only solution to the mess in the present police force is for an enabling environment to be made for the emergence of state police.
Fashola said: “It is imperative to address the myriad of problems facing the Nigeria Police Force. We cannot continue to talk about the strategies to restructure the Nigeria Police without tackling the root causes of crimes in the country.
The major causes of crimes have been poverty, illiteracy and unemployment which are rampant among the youths, and there is need for us to devote our resources to community building, education and workforce development   that provide jobs to make a living because the future of Nigeria and our democracy depends on them.”
Speaking on “Options and Strategies for Restructuring the Nigeria Police Force,” at a public hearing on Police Reform in Nigeria, in Lagos, Fashola said: “The opposition to the establishment of state police structures in Nigeria has largely been driven by an exaggerated, misleading and unfounded precedent focusing on the abuse of state police through political interference and manipulation.”
He noted, however, that “upgrading the existing police system as the central law enforcement institution in the country cannot occur in isolation. It must be part of an overarching restructuring of the total law enforcement infrastructure, including a reform of the criminal-justice system insulated from politics.
But a former Solictor-General for the state, Mr. Fola Arthur Worrey, posited that a state police may not be suitable for the country now as there are anomalies in the functions and operations of the police force in Nigeria and as such has caused a proliferation limiting the functions of the police.