Former Vice President, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar has pledged his support for the community, state and zonal policing to complement the effort of the Federal Government in tackling the security challenges in the country.
According to Atiku, the primary responsibility of government, at any level, is the protection of the lives and property of the citizen.
In a statement by his media adviser, Paul Ibe, Sunday, Atiku noted that in carrying out the function, “the state would employ different layers of measures to ensure effective and efficient policing.”
The statement said, “Atiku Abubakar supports the community, state and zonal police to complement federal police to deal with insecurity in the country. It has never been this bad to the extent of threatening the unity of the country.
“It is without a doubt that in the past decade particularly, the current policing administration in our dear country had been stretched to its limits and it is obvious that the reality of our domestic security upheaval will demand of us to recalibrate our police systems.
“In the First Republic, before we gravitated too much to the centre, policing was done federally with each native authority and region having some mechanisms to deal with little upsets that were the security concerns of those times.
“In the present day Nigeria, there is hardly any state of the federation that does not contend with some type of security challenges. Because our security challenges are diverse in forms and impacts, it is thus incumbent that centrally controlled police architecture cannot exclusively deal with those challenges.
“Consequently, there is a need for the creation of additional policing structures in the country to address the rapidly growing challenges of insecurity and crime.
“The time is ripe to seriously confront the reality of insecurity in the country by addressing the urgency of introducing state police, zonal police and community policing to complement the efforts of the current federal police.
“It is obvious that current levels of insecurity in the country are giving rise to major initiatives such as Amotekun and the issue need not be controversial in the first place.
“The police are likely to be more effective if they constantly operate in the same local community or local government because such closeness might create a bond with the local people, thereby enabling community cooperation and participation that would engender proactive outcomes in crime prevention.
“Nigeria is a vast country facing enormous security challenges and, therefore, there is an urgent need to create more security structures at the local level to reduce the burden on the federal police.
“The issue of security shouldn’t be politicised and monopolised in the face of our current alarming security challenges characterised by the fear of even travelling on our highways by the citizens, who might be intercepted by kidnappers and taken hostage for ransom.
“Local policing shouldn’t be mistaken for an effort to hijack the role of the federal police or competition with the federal government.”
