A former Deputy National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Bode George, has made a fresh call for the establishment of state police in Nigeria.
Speaking on Monday during an appearance on Channels Television’s Politics Today, the elder statesman stressed that state police is urgently needed in the fight against insurgency and insecurity in the country.
According to him, it’s difficult to fight a battle against insurgency because the enemies are not easily identified, and even the insurgents can pretend to be normal citizens.
He added, however, that with state police in place, the people can easily identify themselves and fish out criminals in their respective communities.
“The constitutional conference committee under former president Jonathan stated that the need to have state police cannot be futuristic, it is so urgent,” George said.
“You know, when you go to war, you have a defined enemy, but in this case, it is an insurgency, insecurity within. You don’t know who is who, they can come out in the day and pretend to be part of one area but in the night they turn out to be something else.
So, what you need will be people within their community to police them. They know themselves, they know the do’s and don’ts of that culture, and they know the rules of the people in that culture.
So, they would be better off to be able to manage any issues within their communities. For God’s sake, we need the state police,” he added.
