THE STATE POLICE...

The inability of the governor to mobilize security operatives to the crime scene
The unwillingness of the President to treat an imminent, but avoidable genocide with requisite dispatch despite a 48hours notice; probably in sympathy to his kins men- the fulani herds men
The swiftness with which security apparatchiks were dispatched to suppress a reprisal attack by a hitherto reluctant President
All make the creation of a state police both expedient and most logical.
The governor, being the Chief Security Officer of his state should be able to dispatch security operatives to a crime scene at the snap of a finger. He should have an unfettered access to the security network in his state.
If there were a state Police, the Uzo Uwani massacre most likely would have been nibbed in the bud and the 'prospective' perpetrators probably rounded up
Without doubt, the introduction of a state police would go a long way in curbing the increasing and sophisticated security conundrum ravaging the country.
This call for a state police has again become imperative in view of the dynamic nature crimes in Nigeria have assumed and even more so as crime in Nigeria becomes an admixture of normadic insurrection and herdsmen terrorism.
In view of the barrage of bureaucratic bottle necks and logjams bedeviling the Nigeria Police as presently constituted, it stands to reason that it lacks the rapidity needed to quell any evolving crime.

Section 215(4), makes it clear that a Commissioner of Police shall be at liberty to refer a directive given by a state governor to the President before acting on them. This played out in the Uzo Uwani massacre with untoward consequences on the lives of defenseless law abiding citizens of the land. This section of the constitution makes bold to strip the state of any coercive powers it possesses or presumed to possess.
The Federal government, with over 66 items on its exclusive list is already overburdened with responsibilities and therefore might as well restrict policing to the routine and mundane maintenance of law and order and protection of the seat of power at the detriment of the other 36 federating units.
The non existence of a state police is in fact a negation of the spirit of true federalism on which hinged the existence of Nigeria and since security is a local thing, it therefore stands to reason that it requires only those familiar with the terrain for its effective management and herein lies the need for a state police.

Written by Nathaniel Ogbu