Deputy President of the Senate, Ike Ekweremadu, says
Nigerian Government must be trimmed so that it can function effectively.
He also called for the decentralisation of the Police and
establishment of State Police.
Ekweremadu spoke in a chat with newsmen on Monday.
His words: “We believe that the Federal Governemnt as
presently constituted is too begin and we need to adjust it. In a situation
where you have in the concurrent list only about 16 items, most of the other
things are in the exclusive list.
“It doesn’t make sense: so we need to find a way of trimming
the Federal Government to the benefit of the component states so that some of
these issues don’t become federal issues and that is the idea of federalism.
“We are looking at that: things like arbitration,
agriculture, environment and such issues. Some of these things should go to the
concurrent list and even Police”.
On State Police, he said: “We cannot decentralise the police
now because some people are still opposed to it but i think it is beginning to
make sense that you cannot be able to deal with our security situation in
Nigeria except we change our security architecture.
“There is no place in this world where there is a federal
system, has a unitary tyoe of policing which we have now and that is why we
will continue to get it wrong in solving our security problems.
“It is not going to work until we change the architecture of
our policing: a federal state as big as Nigeria must have to adopt a
decentralised police.
“This means that in Sokoto they will create their kind of
Police, in Kano they will create their own: the kind of Police that will work
in Kano may not necessarily work in Enugu”.
The DSP added that fear of abuse by state government can be
addressed by creating a commission that can monitor the police, like the NJC
monitors the judiciary.
By Wale Odunsi
