Duke Demands State, Local Govt Police, Says Centralised System Has Failed

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 tackle terrorism, banditry, kidnapping and other crimes.

Duke said the country must decentralise policing and make intelligence gathering the cornerstone of security operations, arguing that local communities were better positioned to identify suspicious movements and emerging threats.

Speaking on the country’s security challenges, the former governor said Nigeria had failed to substantially redesign 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 state police, and where necessary, local government police, should be established with clear operational guidelines and strong judicial oversight 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 turn state police into instruments of political intimidation, arguing that the federal police had also faced allegations of being used by powerful political office holders.

“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,” Duke said.

The PRP presidential candidate said intelligence gathering should account for the bulk of policing responsibilities, stressing that local security personnel would have a better understanding of their communities.

“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 failure to develop adequate intelligence on Boko Haram despite nearly two decades 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.

Drawing a comparison with the United States, Duke cited the National Guard as an example of how security structures could be decentralised while operating within a broader national 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 stated.

Duke also linked the spread of terrorism, kidnapping and banditry to poverty, unemployment and the absence of legitimate economic opportunities, recalling the Maitatsine uprising of the late 1970s and early 1980s.

“The northeastern part is the poorest part of the North. You find that those things are exacerbated in those areas,” he said.

“Now, it is creeping all over the North and coming down South.”

He said criminal activities became increasingly difficult to combat when young people discovered that kidnapping and banditry could provide financial rewards far beyond what legitimate employment offered.

“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,” Duke said.

He therefore called for policing reforms to be accompanied by improvements in education, employment and economic opportunities, arguing that military deployments alone could not provide a lasting solution to insecurity.

“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,” he said.