Way out of police ‘impunity’-Ekweremadu

A former Deputy President of the Senate, Senator Ike Ekweremadu, yesterday identified the decentralisation of policing and institution of state police as the lasting solution to the impunity the government is trying to fix in the federal police.

Reacting to the disbandment of the Federal Special AntiRobbery Squad and the setting up of the Special Weapons and Tactical Team, Ekweremadu, in a statement yesterday by his spokesman, Uche Anichukwu, said the Federal Government was still addressing the symptoms rather than the real illness.

He said Nigeria’s policing problem and the attendant insecurity and excesses were engraved majorly in Section 214 (1) of the 1999 constitution, which provides that ‘There shall be a police force for Nigeria, which shall be known as the Nigeria Police Force, and subject to the provisions of this section, no other police force shall be established for the Federation or any part thereof ’.

He therefore called on President Muhammadu Buhari and political stakeholders to seize the opportunity of the widespread demands for police reforms by Nigerians to do the right thing by addressing the structural challenges.

According to him, Nigeria is the only federal state with a unitary police. “It has never worked anywhere. It is not working here and it will never work,” he said.