Southwest Speakers Advocate Multi Level Policing
The South West Conference of Speakers has called for multi level policing architecture in Nigeria to address security challenges facing the country.
They made the call in Ibadan shortly after visiting governor Seyi Makinde at the Agodi Secretariat to commiserate with him over the Bodija explosion.
Speaking with newsmen on behalf of others, Speaker of the Ekiti State House of Assembly, Mr Olubunmi Adelugba, said the visit was part of their consultations with all the South west governors.
Mr Adelugba said the consultation is for the purpose of having regional integration and development and also to look into issues of insecurity, particularly in the South West.
“It is time to have state police, by moving policing from exclusive list to con-current list whereby every state of the federation can take control of security situation in their respective states.
“It is also important for us in South west to have what we called harmonised legislation, particularly in the area that we have common challenges and common issue,” he said
“South west has always being a model and that will continue to be, so we are working on how to have ‘South west legislative summit’ where all members of Houses of Assembly in the zone will come together.
“It is our believe that there’s nothing stoping us in the South West to have rail lines across the zone to drive down economy and bring about development,” Adelugba said.
Earlier, Governor Seyi Makinde pledged his support for the push towards regional legislative integration aimed at creating policy cohesion in security and socioeconomic areas that engenders good governance.
He commended the Speakers and the leadership of the south west state assembly for shuning their political affiliations to form a common front in the interest of the region.
“We spoke on insecurity. It is a big challenge for us all. It is not just because somebody close to you or somebody that you know maybe arms length to you is being kidnapped or murdered, even people that we don’t know. We don’t want to lose any life unnecessarily. So, Many people may not know that on 9th January 2020, when we lunched Amotekun here in oyo state through the support and collaboration of other southwest states.
“The state are already maintaining the federal police because the federal police are looking after the local people. If the responsibilities is split because you are the lawmakers, you are the ones to sparehead these things, you also take resources from the federation account.
So the issue of oh, I can not maintain state police does not even arise. Give us that responsibility first, and let us see if certain states will not be able to maintain it. And as governors, we do peer reviews and compare notes”
“And since we couldn’t get state police, then we settled for Amotekun. Amd for Amotekun,all the states within the South west, we passed a common law for its establishment but please,we have to keep pushing for state police and you have the roles to play to make it a reality. If you need any advice or support from me you can be assured I’ll provide it”he stated
