Sunday Ehigiator
Former Cross River State governor and presidential candidate of the Peoples Redemption Party (PRP), Donald Duke, has called for the establishment of police formations at the state and local government levels, saying Nigeria’s centralised security architecture has failed to effectively confront terrorism, kidnapping, banditry and other crimes.
Duke said the country must decentralise policing and make intelligence gathering the primary responsibility of local security formations, arguing that communities were better positioned to identify suspicious movements and emerging threats within their environments.
Speaking on Nigeria’s security challenges, the former governor said the country had not substantially redesigned its security architecture since the end of the Civil War in 1970.
“You really have not updated your security architecture since 1970. It is only recently that more military divisions were created, but anything that is essential must be local. You have to localise it,” he said.
Duke said the establishment of state police, and where necessary, local government police, was appropriate, provided that clear guidelines and safeguards were established to prevent abuse.
“You have got to decentralise your policing. The idea of state police, even local government police, is right.
“Have it and set the guidelines, but you must strengthen the judiciary because there must be an institution everyone reports to when things go wrong,” he said.
He dismissed concerns that state governors could use state police for political intimidation, arguing that the federal police could also be abused by powerful political officeholders.
“If you say state police will be abused, the national police will also be abused by the president. It is not only governors who can abuse the police. Set it up and put stringent guidelines in place.”
The PRP presidential candidate said intelligence gathering should account for the bulk of policing activities, stressing that security agencies operating far from communities could not easily obtain the kind of information available to residents.
“Eighty per cent of security is intelligence. You cannot be in Sokoto and expect to know what is happening in Calabar. You need local people to gather that intelligence.
“Only about 20 per cent of policing is enforcement. Their main preoccupation should be intelligence gathering,” he said.
Duke also criticised Nigeria’s intelligence efforts against Boko Haram, saying the country should have developed stronger intelligence networks within the terrorist group after years of insurgency.
“It is a shame that after almost 20 years of Boko Haram, we don’t have adequate intelligence on them.
“We have not infiltrated their ranks. We ought to have infiltrated their ranks by now to know what they will do next,” he said.
He cited the United States as an example of a country that operates decentralised security structures, pointing to the National Guard, which has formations in individual states while remaining within a defined federal framework.
“In the United States, they have what they call the National Guard, which is military and it is in every state. It is really like having a division in every state. They have decentralised security,” he said.
Beyond policing, Duke linked the spread of terrorism, kidnapping and banditry to poverty and the lack of legitimate economic opportunities, particularly in communities where young people have limited access to productive livelihoods.
He recalled the Maitatsine uprising of the late 1970s and early 1980s, arguing that poverty could exacerbate violent movements.
“The northeastern part is the poorest part of the North. You find that those things are exacerbated in those areas. Now, it is creeping all over the North and coming down South.”
Duke said the financial returns from kidnapping and banditry could also make it difficult to persuade young people involved in crime to return to legitimate employment.
“A kidnapper kidnaps someone and gets N20 million. You then tell him to take a steady job that pays N250,000. It cannot work.
“He has already tasted blood, and it becomes very difficult to wean him off it,” he said.
He therefore called for security reforms to be accompanied by investments in education, employment and other measures that would improve economic opportunities for citizens.
According to him, the government’s responsibility is to create a safe and orderly environment in which citizens can be economically productive.
“The reason we need a government is to ensure the utmost productivity of our citizens within a safe and orderly environment. If people are productive and the environment is safe, what more should the government do? That is the foundation of a stable country,” Duke said.