By Kayode Abdulazeez, Ilorin
A professor of constitutional law, Mojeed Alabi has cautioned the government and National Assembly to address the gray areas that make federal police inefficiency before the implementation of highly debated state police.
Alabi, who is the Provost, College of Law at the Osun State University, raised this concern while presenting a paper at a national conference organized by the Institute for Legislative Studies, University of Ilorin, Kwara State, on the theme “Restructuring the Policing Architecture in Nigeria: Is State Police the Optimal Solution?
The former member of the Federal House of Representatives stated “While no one can contend the fact that the security challenges facing the country require some measure of local or community involvement, which the idea of state police represents, there’s nothing to suggest that the adoption of state police simplicity will solve the problem or that the security challenges cannot be effectively tackled by other means.
“The road to full adoption of state police is fraught with landmines that need to be successfully scaled before we can arrive at the Promised Land.
The former speaker Osun State House of Assembly cautioned that, “The National Assembly must be able to put in place an Act that will properly delineate the scope of the respective jurisdictions of the federal and the state polices in order to avoid conflict of interests in the use and deployment of police forces.”
“The issue of training, discipline, and control of policemen must also be taken seriously. In this sense, I suggest a Police Commission at the level of the Federation that will be responsible for the training and certification of policemen and the creation of a pool from which any units of government can recruit men and officers as may be needed. Such a Commission should also be able to discipline and discharge any erring police officers.
“Such a body will function like the National Judicial Council (NJC) mutatis mutandis with additional jurisdiction of providing professional training and certification that will ensure that anyone recruited into the police forces at any level has sufficient understanding, backed by codes of conduct, of the nature of responsibility to be discharged.
“Unless such a system is built, policemen operating under different control may be nothing more than armed groups for contestations arising from political, religious, ethnic, or other differences.
“The legal frameworks should state clearly the scope of the respective powers of the national and the state assemblies in making laws on policing as well as the funding sources for maintaining the policies as part of the critical structures for governance.
“The legal framework will need to harmonize the policing infrastructure in a manner that promotes collaboration at all levels rather than mutual acrimony and antagonism as has become commonplace in inter-agency rivalry among the security forces even under the centralized policing arrangements currently in existence.” he said
In his remarks, the Vice-Chancellor of the University, Professor Wahab Egbewole, SAN represented by Professor Abdulfatai Sambo, lauded the institute for playing a key role in championing a better and more secure Nigeria said, “There is no better time to discuss this important issue than now when the nation constitution is being altered.”
