Shinkafi backs State Police

FORMER Director General of the National Security Organisation (NSO) and an Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) chieftain, Alhaji Umaru Shinkafi, has urged President Goodluck Jonathan to facilitate a law for the establishment of State Police.He said State Police were the antidote to the Boko Haram sect insurgency and other acts of terrorism in the country.Besides, Shinkafi argued that amid 'unprecedented threats to national security by local insurgents, which have not only posed serious challenges to governance but also continued to claim scores of innocent lives, it was pertinent that attention should be focused on the need to strengthen law enforcement in general and the police in particular'.Shinkafi, who was also a chieftain of All Nigerian Peoples Party (ANPP) and presidential aspirant in 1992, stated this on Monday.He further explained that while there was understandable consensus that the objective of creating State Police entailed boosting the capacity and effectiveness of the police in terms of personnel and equipment, the other strategy necessitating the introduction of a second-tier of police formation at state level had hitherto been engulfed in unyielding controversy.He added: 'But the exigencies facing the nation at the moment, particularly with the Boko Haram insurgency and other terrorist acts Nigeria has witnessed in the past months, necessitated that the Federal Government considers empowering states to have their police to combat crimes in the country', Shinkafi said.He added: 'The issue of introducing State Police in Nigeria has, however, not lost credibility on account of such conflicts of opinion and in the latest round, it is clear that sooner than later, controversy will give way to sheer necessity, notwithstanding its unfounded rejection by an unduly biased section of public opinion and other entrenched interests. Indeed, it was recently disclosed that the President presented a memorandum to the National Council of States recommending the proposal, which the Council unfortunately rejected'.
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