Buba Galadima, a chieftain of the News Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) has issued a warning to the government.
He warned against the establishment of state police in the country.
Speaking during an interview with ARISE NEWS on Friday, Galadima described the idea of state police as dangerous and potentially destructive to democracy.
Galadima asserted that the states in Nigeria are not mature enough to handle decentralised policing and that governors would inevitably turn state police into a political weapon to arrest, harass, and jail their opponents.
He argued that in states where even local government elections are already manipulated by governors, adding a security apparatus to their arsenal would embolden abuse and erode citizens’ rights.
He said, “Please, I beg Nigerians, and I beg members of this National Assembly, including state assemblies, that they should never, in any circumstance, allow the creation of state police. It may be convenient for us now, but we will come to cry when it becomes constitutional matter, which we cannot do away with in a simple manner. It will destroy democracy, as you see now, what some of those elected are doing with us.
If they have the instrument of state police, the democracy we are fighting – we are cherishing is going to the winds. So I completely, throughout my time in Constituent Assembly 1987, Constitutional Conference 1994, and Jonathan’s National Conference of 2014, I have fought relentlessly against the creation of state police.”
