The African Democratic Congress (ADC) has rated the federal government’s handling of the legislation for the creation of State Police.
The ADC in a statement on Friday by its National Publicity Secretary, Bolaji Abdullahi, said the process was hurriedly taken through the National Assembly.
He added that the process showed panic on the part of President Bola Tinubu.
The party said that while it supported the creation of State Police, it had always held the view that the policing architecture in Nigeria must evolve to reflect the realities of the country’s federal system, but that support for state police should not be confused with support for the handling of this important national reform by the Tinubu administration.
It was reported that the State Police bill was approved by the Senate on Wednesday.
What Nigerians are witnessing, Abdullahi said, is a knee-jerk reaction to a deteriorating security crisis, not the deliberate institutional planning needed to build a functional, accountable and effective policing system.
“The State police is too important and the security of Nigerians too urgent to be reduced to a quick fix of the legislature or hurriedly passed through the National Assembly without the broad consultation that such a far-reaching reform deserves,” he said.
The ADC also said the idea of State Police is not peculiar to the Tinubu government and that its hasty implementation only raises more questions about its purpose and capacity to deal with Nigeria’s security challenges.
“It is just as important to say that there is nothing new about the idea of state police. Decentralised policing has been part of Nigeria’s constitutional and political discourse for decades and today enjoys widespread national support. What is new is the effort by the Tinubu administration to package this long-standing national consensus as a bold new initiative and, worse, to present it as a silver bullet for the country’s current security crisis. It is not. State police is a structural reform and its benefits will be realised over time only. It can not of itself solve the emergency of to-day.
This is why the apparent haste to push this legislation through the National Assembly without the broad consultation and public engagement that a constitutional reform of this magnitude requires, is both unnecessary and potentially counterproductive. Such far-reaching implications for every Nigerian and that could fundamentally change the constitutional architecture of the country, necessitate broad consultation and careful reflection. Instead, what we are seeing is a government in a mad rush to amend the Constitution so as to give the impression that it is doing something about the country’s worsening insecurity,” the statement said.
The party wondered why President Tinubu would choose such a time to pursue the implementation of the State Police structure in Nigeria.
It also raised concerns about setting up recruitment, vetting, training, equipment, funding, command structures, operational guidelines and independent oversight for state policing.
The party cautioned against the creation of another institution which could be abused.
Why would it take the Tinubu administration until almost the end of its tenure to start rushing through a constitutional amendment if President Tinubu was indeed serious about state police?
But passing a law is only the start – and probably the easiest part – of a complex process. Recruitment, vetting, training, equipment, funding, command structures, operational guidelines, independent oversight cannot be built overnight, especially as the country heads into yet another election cycle. In the meantime, terrorists, kidnappers and bandits are not going to suspend their activities while new institutions are being assembled. Nigerians deserve reforms that are carefully designed to be successful, not reforms that are designed to give the impression that the government is doing something.
But the government’s approach also fails to address key questions. What protection will there be against the state police becoming a political tool? What guarantees are there that state legislatures and judiciaries will be truly independent and able to provide meaningful oversight? Who will handle police recruitment, deployment, discipline and funding? What about the accompanying reforms to prosecution, corrections, forensic capacity and intelligence coordination? These are not second questions. “They are the difference between building a professional police service and creating another institution that may be prone to abuse,” the ADC warned.
