The Police Community Relations Committee (PCRC) in Nigeria on
Wednesday warned against the establishment of state police as panacea
for the rising spate of insecurity and banditry in the country.
Alhaji Ibrahim Olaniyan, the National Vice Chairman, South/West of
PCRC, gave the warning in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria
(NAN) in Ado Ekiti.
Olaniyan said that PCRC was opposed to the establishment of state
police because it would only cause more harm than good to the security
situation in the country.
He insisted that the federal police remained the best to fight crime
and improve on the electoral system, unlike the state police “being
desperately canvassed by politicians”.
“The state police would be a ready instrument politicians would use to deal with perceived enemies.
“We are not ripe for state police; those calling for state police,
especially some governors and politicians, are only canvassing it for
selfish interests, not because of national interest.
“For selfish interest because they know they will use it to unleash terror on opponents, especially during elections.
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“The only way to combat insecurity is by retaining federal police,
and by consistently educating our people on the need to give timely and
correct information about the situations around them to the police for
prompt action.
“The police are not complicit in the insecurity
being experienced, because it is the people themselves that are
harbouring criminals. They do not report suspected criminals to the
police for arrest, “There is also the need for more Nigerians to embrace and join the
PCRC so that we can all work to complement information gathering and
crime prevention,” he said.
Speaking on the need for strong community policing to make Nigeria
free of kidnapping and killings, Olaniyan said: “Policemen are not
magicians, while criminals are not ghosts.
“All these people you call criminals are living among us.” They are not spirits. If they stayed in an hotel, somebody has the
hotel and he knows the data of those staying in his premises.
“In the olden days, people had this misconception that if they gave
police any information, the police will in turn divulge it for financial
gains. This is not true of our federal police of today.
“Let us strengthen community policing. Nigeria has over 200 million
population and we cannot boast of one million or 500,000 policemen. “We need to police this nation by ourselves by helping the police with the right information as members of the public.”
