‘Multi-level policing’ will help fight insecurity across states, says Fayemi

GOVERNOR Kayode Fayemi has said there is a need for “multilevel policing” for the state governments across the country to effectively fight criminality.

Fayemi, who doubles as the chairman of the Nigeria Governors Forum, noted that multilevel policing would complement the federal police and not lead to its revocation.

The Ekiti State Governor said this while featuring on Channels Television programme last night.

Fayemi, who lamented the helplessness of state governors in fighting insecurity in their states, said measures should be put in place to check the excesses of state or local police to allay fear of abuse of power.

“States ultimately may need to take greater charge of security within their own jurisdiction. Some of us, and the Nigerian Governor’s Forum specifically, have argued consistently in the past, that we need multi-level policing in this country, and multilevel policing for us is not a revocation of federal police,” he said.

“It is a complimentary (sic) level of police in addition to federal police. When you do that, you would also not have a situation in which there is no trust. You need to have mechanisms to deal with aberrant usage of local or state police. We have the Nigerian police council which hardly functions”.

He also spoke on the activities of the Western Nigeria Security Network,  codenamed ‘Amotekun’, stating that operatives are not able to function optimally because they’re not allowed to carry weapons.

He said, “Amotekun is working, but it’s not working optimally because they’re not even allowed to carry weapons. So, what’s the use of an Amotekun that cannot confront a kidnapper in the bush because the kidnapper is carrying an AK-47 and he’s carrying a stick? Let’s be real; it’s not going to work.

“As an intelligence officer, if you’re targeted because they know you’re the one providing information to the mainstream security agencies, you’re under threat.”

Reacting to the growing insecurity rocking the country, particularly the spate of abductions in the North, Fayemi called for serious investment in technology to secure schools across the nation.

He said, “We need to at least take some basic precautionary measures by providing — across the length and breadth of our country — schools with perimeter fences. We can also put vigilante, security operatives in those schools,” he said.

“But more than anything else, we need to invest in technology, because these people are not ghosts — those who are responsible for this. We know where they are. People can track them, but somehow, we appear a little bit handicapped in responding effectively to the menace of criminals and bandits in the country. 

“Instead, we’ve provided silly excuses by attaching it to the ethnicity of whoever is culpable, rather than focusing on the crime committed.”