Goodluck Jonathan backs establishment of State Police, says “no going back”

Former President Goodluck Jonathan strongly stated that the establishment of State Police is the sole solution to address the prevailing security challenges in the country.

He firmly believes that empowering each state with its own police force will enhance security and enable a more effective response to local security issues.

According to Jonathan, the implementation of State Police will provide a localized approach to law enforcement, better equipped to tackle the unique security concerns faced by individual states.

The former President  said this at a Critical National Dialogue on the Establishment of State Police organised by the House of Representatives on Monday in Abuja, with the theme “Pathways to Peace: Reimagining Policing in Nigeria”.

“We don’t need to debate whether we should have state police or not, I think is already settled, there is no way to manage our internal security if the states do not have their police,” Jonathan said.

He said that the 2014 National Conference set up during his administration  supported the creation of state police.

He added that the country could not afford to toy with the idea of state police any longer.

“We must not waste our time debating whether we should have state police or not, we should concentrate on how to check abuses by state political actors.

“The key area that we need to debate is how we will run the state police to secure the security architecture of the country so that it is most effective and devoid of any political influence,” Jonathan said.

He said the idea of establishing state police should have been concretise while he was in office as the President and Commander-in- Chief.

“If we are talking of state police, we must also rejig the Independent National Electoral Commission, so that the state police would not be used to favor the ruling party,” he said.

He said with state police, kidnapping and other criminalities would be reduced to the barest minimum.

“We have not been able to control the issue of kidnapping since it started, and we need to reduce it to the barest minimum,” he said.