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The Kaduna State governor, Uba Sani, has said the menace of insecurity plaguing a large portion of the North can be put to an end only by implementing state policing.
Governor Sani’s statement comes hours after bandits stormed the Gindin Dutse Makyali village of Kufana district in the Kajuru Local Government Area of Kaduna State.
”In the last six months or thereabout, I have been insisting that we can only address the issue of insecurity if we establish state policing,” Governor Sani said in a one-on-one chat on Channels Television’s Sunday Politics.
”I am happy that some few weeks ago some governors joined me in agitating for state police and it was a lone voice.”
”Some governors have also done a lot in the last few months by establishing or empowering the vigilance services.”
Governor Sani disclosed that normalcy had returned to the affected community and efforts were underway to rescue those abducted by the bandits.
He also noted that the measures employed by his comrades are ”temporary measures” at best.
”This can not and can never address the state of insecurity until we agree to collectively agree to establish state police immediately,” he said.
Asked if he was looking to institute a local police network controlled by traditional rulers to aid in the fight against banditry, the governor was insistent that these forms of security outfits would be best suited to “intelligence gathering and sharing all aimed at supporting other security agencies.”
”If you have vigilante service or vigilante groups or you have community policing, where is the law that allows them to carry AK-47,” he said while noting the law hinders these groups from being well-equipped.
Kidnapping and banditry have become major problems in Nigeria, with criminal gangs targeting highways, and apartments and even snatching pupils from schools.
Gangs known locally as bandits operate out of bases hidden in forests across the northwest and central states.
To address these issues, the federal government and the state governments agreed that a state police force was necessary, marking “a significant shift” in approach, Information Minister Mohammed Idris told reporters after the meeting.
This is the first time that both governments have agreed on the need to set up state police to reinforce the more than 300,000-strong national police force in Africa’s most populous nation. (Channels)
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