A former governor of old Kaduna State, Alhaji Balarabe Musa says the creation of a state police will not solve the security challenges in the country.
Musa gave this view in a telephone interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos on Wednesday.
He was reacting to Tuesday’s Senate resolution directing its Constitutional Review Committee to put in place machinery for the amendment of the Constitution to allow for the creation of state police.
The resolution was due to concerns raised by Sen. Jonah Jang on the killings in Plateau and other parts of the country.
Balarabe said that the creation of state police would be counter-productive if adopted by the country.
“I believe it will solve nothing .What I believe will solve the problem is for the Federal Government to strengthen the Nigerian police.
“We are having these issues because of the poor training, lack of equipment and all that which have hindered the capability of the police.
“What the Federal Government needs to do is to train and retrain the personnel, provide equipment and increase the number of the personnel,” he said.
Besides, he said state governments would abuse it and the issues of security would be worsened because some state governments would use it to further their political interests.
Asked if the Federal Government had the capacity to effectively police the nation in view of its cost implications, Musa said the problem was not capacity but the political will.
He said the government could afford to fund the police if it summoned the will and call for the right investment in security.
The former Kaduna governor, however, said that security was the responsibility of everyone and urged all to be involved in it.
Reacting, a former Minister of Transportation, Chief Ebenezer Babatope, said state police would bring a lasting solution to the country’s security challenges.
He said the country could not claim to practice federalism without a state police because state police was an essential ingredient of true federalism.
Babatope said state police would boost the number of police personnel, adding that the nooks and crannies of the country would be better policed.
“State police is the way to go. It is the answer to all the security issues we are having in the country,” he said.
Asked if the adoption of state police would not be abused by governors to fight political opponents, Babatope answered in the negative.
He argued that any responsible governor would know that security was an important issue and would not do anything to undermine it.
“Any governor that does that will eventually destroy himself because what goes around comes around,” he said. (NAN)