Human rights lawyer Femi Falana (SAN) has cautioned that establishing state police will not solve Nigeria’s insecurity unless the government also addresses poverty and unemployment.
Speaking on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Thursday, Falana argued that the country’s security challenges are often viewed only from the perspective of policing structures, while the underlying social and economic factors are ignored.
“We always reduce the problem of insecurity to security architecture, in fact structure. How do we have more police stations? How do we employ more policemen and women without considering social security?” Falana queried.
“Why are more young men taking to criminality? Why are we not talking about creating employment for young people? Why are we not giving assistance to Nigerians that are vulnerable, extremely poor or dimensionally poor? And unless you address these problems holistically, creating a state police or local government police will not address the crisis of insecurity in the country.”
His remarks followed President Bola Tinubu’s transmission of a bill to the Senate on Tuesday seeking to amend the 1999 Constitution to establish state police services across the federation.
The Senate passed the bill on Wednesday after Senate Leader Opeyemi Bamidele presented its general principles. It subsequently scaled second reading, was considered clause-by-clause, and passed third reading with the support of more than two-thirds of senators.
If signed into law by the President, the legislation will replace the current Nigeria Police Force structure with a dual policing system comprising a Federal Police Service and State Police Services.
One of the bill’s key provisions empowers state governors to appoint commissioners of police for their respective states, subject to confirmation by their state Houses of Assembly.
Lawmakers also included safeguards intended to protect political freedoms and civil liberties in response to concerns about potential abuse of the proposed policing system.
Falana noted that regional policing is not new to Nigeria, recalling that the country operated a decentralised policing system during the First Republic.
However, he said the arrangement was scrapped because of what he described as widespread abuse of police powers by regional authorities.
He argued that Nigeria must first address the issues that led to the abolition of the previous dual policing structure before reintroducing it.
“If we now want to go back to the status quo ante bellum, we must ask questions. The fears that were entertained, the problem that led to the abolition of the dual policing system, have they been taken care of? I haven’t seen any signs. I have seen the bill passed by both chambers of the National Assembly, the bill is so sketchy,” he said.
Falana also expressed concern over the checks and balances for the proposed state police and questioned the financial capacity of some state governments to sustain their own police services.
According to him, several states are already struggling to pay workers’ salaries and pensions.