Former Cross River State Governor and Presidential Candidate of the People's Redemption Party (PRP), Donald Duke, has backed the creation of state police, saying security should be handled locally because it is essential to the people.
Duke spoke during an interview in which he discussed governance and security in Nigeria.
“Security is local and has to be said it's essential and has to be local,” he said.
“Bearing that in mind, obviously I support devolution of policing.”
However, Duke said the creation of state police could lead to abuse if Nigeria’s judicial system is not strengthened.
“The fear is the abuse,” he said, adding that the first step should be to improve the judiciary.
Duke said even the federal police is abused, meaning similar problems could occur if policing powers are transferred to the states.
“If you have a weak judiciary, if you have the kind of judiciary we have now, and I'm not here to exculpate the judiciary, but if you don't do anything about it at that level, then the fears that have been expressed by various sources and various people would be real,” he said.
He also argued that policing is largely about intelligence gathering, saying 80% of policing involves intelligence while only 20% involves enforcement.
Duke said state or community policing could work, but only if there are strong legal safeguards to prevent abuse.
“We can postulate all the virtues of local or state policing or local policing or community policing,” he said, “but if you don't have a strong stopgap in the judiciary or the magisterial level or whatever levels, I think it'll be an exercise in futility.”
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