SENATE RENEWS CALL FOR STATE POLICE

The Senate yesterday renewed its call for state police to combat the rising cases of insecurity in the country.
The latest push is against the backdrop of the recent killings in Benue, Plateau, Kaduna, Taraba and Katsina states by cattle rustlers.
The Senate also mandated its Committees on Security and Intelligence, Interior, Defence and Army and Police Affairs to undertake fact finding missions into the killings and report back to it.
These resolutions were sequel to the adoption of a motion sponsored by Senator Barnabas Gemade and five other senators titled “Recent Attacks and Killings in Plateau, Benue, Kaduna and other parts of the Central Nigerian Area”.
Deputy senate president Ike Ekweremadu who presided over plenary said with the current system of Federal Police, it will be very difficult to combat insecurity in the country hence the need to decentralise the police force.
He further explained that it is unacceptable to have a federal system and still have a centralised police force, and stressed the need to have the force at every level of government in the country.
“We must be able to provide sufficient police personnel that should be at least one policeman per 100 metres away. And this can only be achieved if we decentralise our Police, ensuring that we have State Police and possibly Local Police that are well coordinated and regulated. We had problem in the past in this area because they were not well regulated and they were not coordinated”, he said.
Source: Leadership