Shehu Sani: Millions spent by govs on security doesn’t reach police officers

Shehu Sani, former Kaduna senator, says he believes that with the right support and motivation, police officers can properly tackle insecurity.

He said this on Thursday in an interview, during which he discussed banditry and insecurity in the country.

When asked what he thought about the call by Ike Ikweremadu, former deputy senate president, for the creation of state police, Sani supported the move, and added that officers should be deployed to their villages.

The former senator representing Kaduna central also said he disagreed with governors who claimed not to have influence over the activities of the police in their states.

He added that young people should be recruited from villages into the police force, and redeployed to their villages where they’ll be able to perform better.

“As far as I’m concerned, I believe that police officers should be posted to areas where they come from, so that they know the terrain very well, and they can squarely and adequately tackle the problem,” he said when he appeared as a guest on a Channels Television programme.

“I made a submission some time ago. I said between Kaduna and Abuja, there are about 37 villages, and I believe we can recruit young people from those villages into our security apparatus and redeploy them to their villages. They can do better than bringing in strangers who will find the terrain strange.

“As far as I’m concerned, I think the modification of that is that police should be posted to areas where they come from. State police has its own drawbacks in the sense that it will certainly be abused by state governors to intimidate opponents. But now there’s a restraint.

“Whatever we can do to address our security challenges at this critical moment is very important. What is clear is that even the police as they exist today have not been well equipped. They have not been well trained to address the issues and there is more talk than action you see on the ground.

“Many of the state governors claim to spend millions of naira on security, but that doesn’t get to the police at all. So, as far as I’m concerned, I think the Nigerian police only need to be reactivated, reequipped to address the problem as it is on the ground.”