Former senator representing Ekiti North Senatorial District in the National Assembly, Ayodele Arise, has revealed the need for President Bola Tinubu-led administration to adopt state police in the country.
The former lawmaker who served under the umbrella of the Peoples Democratic Party opined that the adoption of state police will help to eradicate crime to the bearest minimum.
Speaking in an interview with The Sun, the former chairman, Senate Committee on Privatisation, who used America for illustration stated that because of state and local government police, strange faces within a neighborhood are detected immediately.
He stated that President Tinubu has lived in America and also has a better understanding of how the state police works.
“First, on the issue of whether I feel secured in Abuja, I will say yes. This is the seat of government and I don’t think that insecurity would take an upper hand here. It is very unlikely. They could happen just like it is happening and the reportage too because it is the capital and it will always be there. And of course, I keep on saying almost every day when you open up the TV, even in the United States, in the city of Atlanta, you will hear that somebody has been shot in the South west and I live in the North side of Atlanta and I never came to see this.
“But I have been very careful in Abuja. Anywhere I go, not only in Abuja but across the country because we haven’t been able to resolve the issue of kidnapping, totally. But I look at it that the President has been one of the advocates of state policing because I remember those days when I was in the Senate and we were pushing for it and I got feedback from those who are close to him and I know that in his heart that he understands that state policing is a necessity. Not only state, local government and cities and because he had lived in America he understands the structure of policing.
“It should be a priority so that people, if in Plateau, they have a state police, and they have local government police. If a stranger comes to your local government or state, you can easily detect. You know within 12 hours, somebody is here, not to talk of people moving a population of army to go and attack defenceless people. So, there is need for that decentralization to the city level, the local government, and the state. When we do that, then we know that the foundation has been laid for the future of fighting insecurity. When we even say that the FCT where the IGP lives and operates from and most of the DIGs are here, that shows to tell you that yes, there will always be problems, there will always be insecurity but it is the responsibility of the government to reduce them to a minimum possible.
“It isn’t that there will be any government that will be able to say, ” oh, there will be no crime, no kidnapping.” It is almost an Utopian idea. There will always be crime and that’s why there will always be police and there will always be architecture for curbing crime in every country. So, it isn’t a thing that the President can say, within seven months or one year, it has been eradicated. He can only, by the time he finishes his tenure, God willing, eight years, he can say this is the position I met this country. This is the position I am leaving it. Crime has reduced by almost, 70, 80, or 90 per cent. But it is not total eradication. That’s like the problem of corruption.
“Nobody is going to tell us that he will eradicate corruption, because it is ingrained in the blood system so everybody wants to get rich quick. And that’s why this President is working hard in such a way that the attraction to government office is actually reduced and the issue of employment is no longer solely in the hands of the federal government but in the hands of private individuals as well. That’s my take on that,” he said.
