Ekweremadu: Federal policing has collapsed — it has failed woefully

Ike Ekweremadu, former deputy president of the senate, says Nigeria’s policing system has failed woefully.

Speaking at the Ikeja chapter of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) on Monday, Ekweremadu called for the decentralisation of the police.

He said it had become expedient in the face of the rising wave of banditry and kidnapping across the country.

He said restructuring the police was no longer a matter of choice but a matter of urgency.

“Our policing system has failed woefully. There are no other federating states that have done what we are doing in policing,” he said.

“It is no surprise that with the capsizing of the national police, the nation’s security has also collapsed.

“In an instance where we have decentralised police, we will have a federal police system and 774 police systems in all the 774 local governments in the 36 states and in Abuja.

“The implication, therefore, is that if the federal police fail, we have additional layers in 36 states but right now, they are absent.

“Now that the federal policing have collapsed because they do not have the resources, the funding and the manpower, there is nothing to hold on to.”