A Don and Public Affairs Analyst, Dr. Adetokunbo Pearse, has called on the Federal Government to decentralise the security system in the country to allow states adequately manage their own security affairs.
Adetokunbo, a don at the University of Lagos, in a statement in Lagos on Saturday, said the invasion of states was rapidly becoming a national trend, a frightening development.
He said that while local security units like Amotekun were helpful, they cannot be the long term solution to security in the Country.
“Every state must be empowered by the Constitution to have its own full fledged police force. Federal police presence in the local community is an anomaly in a federal structure,” he said.
Adetokunbo said the main arguments for the restructuring of the security system in the country was the need for state police, operating under state laws, and funded by the states themselves.
He said: “It is through the instrumentality of funding that the federal government is controlling security in the nation today.
“As things stand, states will be hard pressed to find funding for a conventional police force. However, if states are allowed free access to their mineral resources, they will have the funds to finance their own security agencies.
“Consider the potency of such fiscal restructuring; by mining its gold, Zamfara State has doubled its annual Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) within a few months operation in year 2020.
“Ondo-Ekiti axis is sitting on the third largest deposit of bitumen in the world. Therefore, the South West geopolitical zone can generate all the revenue it needs to fund its own defence.
“Rich minerals abound in every state of the federation.”
The News Agency of Nigeria reports that Adetokunbo advocated a decentralised security system of government for Nigeria, as a solution to the security challenges and in order for the states to achieve their growth potentials.
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