THE Peoples Democratic Party‘s (PDP) gubernatorial candidate for Adamawa State, Dr Maurice Vunobolki, has said that the recent endorsement by the Nigeria Senate and President Bola Ahmed Tinubu‘s enthusiastic support for State Police, the security votes of state governors will go into direct funding of the subnational police departments.

In an exclusive interview with TheGuardian in Abuja, the PDP chieftain said that states should devise creative strategies to ensure greater community in policing, pointing out that even without state police, the governor of his home brought communities into the security loop.

He stated that when the state police come on stream it will now form the basis of a formidable security structure that will address the challenges of security in every state, pointing out for instance that in Adamawa State, Governor Ahmadu Umaru Fintiri relies so much on hunters, and community-vigilante to address issues of security.

“Although these are not recognised in law, they are recognisable institutions through which governments could fund security and that is where quite a large chunk of those security votes go for.

“But, now they are going to have state police, which will now form the basis of channeling security votes into action. I believe that most governors in Nigeria are able to now use the security votes to fund the state police. Then, they should make sure that they have the requisite equipment, the tools, like drones that they can use to secure their communities and their environment.

“So, I am also a proponent of state police. I believe that that’s going to work a lot. And then, given the fact that if we have state police, the budget of the police at the national level will also have to reduce.

“Because, the burden will now go back to the states and then ultimately also increase the security votes across states, which will be used to fund the state police, arm the personnel with the requisite equipment to be able to address the challenges that come with security in the various states,” he explaind.

Vunobolki, who is a Chartered Accountant and Development Economist, recalled that being a frontier state, the Adamawa State Government under Fintiri did a lot in terms of community policing to bush back on the Boko Haram attacks, which exacerbated under a previous administration.

He stated:”Those attacks continued unabated until Fintiri came into office and was able to put quite a lot of things in order to address issues of security and attacks, collaborating with the federal government of Nigeria to do that. And that is why he has been able to also embark on quite a lot of policies that have worked, because he has been able to implement those policies under a very secure environment.

“So, I will give it to him that given the kind of development that he has embarked upon, even across the state, not limited to the state capital, security would have been one of the factors that he has dealt with for him to be able to develop the northern part of Adamawa State, construct roads that leads to local government areas, that connects communities to local government council headquarters and all that.”

The PDP governorship hopeful said it was not easy for governors like Fintiri to achieve much in the broader perspective, since security strategy lies mostly with the federal government, which is responsible for security of lives and property, most especially as the Nigerian Police Force, the Nigerian Army, Air Force are all under the command of the federal government.

“So, there’s always a limit to what governments could do. They will try as much as possible to use certain strategies, like local governance, to anticipate any form of attack and address it using the locals’ intelligence they have available, traditional institutions to do that. So, I would say to an extent that that is what he has been doing.

“So, in the recent past, he has created chiefdom and emirates to make sure that local governance goes down deep, addressing issues of security in Adamawa State. And so, all that they need to do now is for this newly created chiefdoms and emirates to be strengthened for local governance, and they will be able to address issues of security, because, I mean, an attack cannot take place without indigenes of those communities being part of the attack, or giving information to the attackers.

“No attacker comes and attacks just like that spontaneously, without any form of information or intel from those that are within the area. So, the local governance structures are supposed to deal with the issues of informants that give information to those attackers to come. So, if you have a strengthened traditional institution, that will help regulate and bring to the barest minimum some of those kinds of attacks,” he explained.