A chieftain of the All Progressive Congress (APC), Mr. Gbenga Olawepo-Hashim has called on the party leadership, President Bola Tinubu and the National Assembly structure to, as a matter of urgency, implement the party policy of decentralisation of Policing to halt the seemingly unending high profile crime of killings and kidnappings across the country.
On the heels of last Thursday’s abduction and killing of the Olu Koro in Ekiti Local Government Area of Kwara State, His Royal Highness, Oba Olusegun Aremu, Olawepo-Hashim said at the weekend in Ilorin, the state capital, that the barbaric incident is condemnable and represented another “sordid episode in the unending killings of community leaders and their subjects by rampaging gangs of terrorists/kidnappers moving like a guerrilla movement round most states in Nigeria”.
On 29th January, gunmen also killed two Ekiti monarchs – the Onimojo of Imojo, Oba Olatunde Olusola, and the Elesun of Esun Ekiti, Oba Babatunde Ogunsakin. Also in the same area, the assailants attacked a school bus and whisked away five pupils of the Apostolic Faith Group of Schools, three teachers, and the bus driver. The victims have now been rescued, while the driver died in the hands of the kidnappers.
According to the Civil Society Joint Action Group, 2,423 persons had been killed, while 1,872 others had been abducted in the eight months of President Bola Tinubu’s administration.
The group added insecurity had persisted over the last three administrations, with 24,816 Nigerians killed and 15,597 persons abducted in the last administration of President Muhammadu Buhari, between 2019 and 2023.
Olawepo-Hashim maintained that the barbaric killing is condemnable and represented another sordid episode in the unending killings of community leaders and their subjects by rampaging gangs of terrorists/kidnappers moving like a guerrilla movement round most states in Nigeria.
According to him, “I really do not understand the hesitation on the part of the President and the party leadership to lead the charge. Many state governments and Local Government Councils are being controlled by APC. The party also controls the National Assembly and majority of State Houses of Assembly. So, it means the party can obtain the legislative consensus within one week to bring to birth state policing”.
There has been a clamour for the establishment of state police, which is contrary to Section 214 of the Nigerian 1999 Constitution. This is as a result of the deteriorating situation of the security system in Nigeria.
Not a few Nigerians had argued that centralised police system is not only inadequate but cannot meet the security need of the country and the people. They advised that the police should be under the control of the state and local government areas since they are closer to the people instead of the Federal Government.
Olawepo-Hashim argued that, while the immediate creation of local police would not stop all the problem of insecurity in Nigeria, it would solve about 50 percent of it, adding that “we cannot let the bloodletting continue and carry on as if we are confused on what is to be done to stop it”.
