Top cop Yomi Shogunle slams move to create state police

If eventually created, state police will be prone to mismanagement and may become tools of vendetta in the hands of politicians, a top Nigerian police officer has warned.

Yomi Shogunle, an assistant commissioner of police who heads the Nigerian Police’s Public Complaint Rapid Response Unit, insisted that community policing would yield better results.

“How many General Hospitals own by State Governments are functioning,” he queried in a tweet on Saturday.

“Those videos of activities at LG elections organized by State Govt. Electoral bodies. Results are always 100 – 0.

“Controversial DPP Legal Advise by State Ministry of Justice.

“Now we want to add State Police?”

The Nigerian Senate Tuesday endorsed the creation of state police as means of combating growing insecurity in some parts of the country.

Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu said the Nigerian government does not have enough manpower to fatal clashes in the country, noting that the prevailing insecurity in the country has become an ‘international embarrassment’.

“The fact is, the Federal Government does not have enough manpower to fight these attacks,” he said during the Senate plenary on Tuesday. “This is unfortunate.”

“I want to thank SP, Bukola Saraki and ask for provision to be made for State Police. We have to come up with initiatives to deal with this”, he said.

“Each state of this Federation needs to have a sufficient number of police available to tackle this issue as it has become an international embarrassment.”

But having a state police with its rank and file made up of the indigenes of a particular is dangerous, Shogunle noted.