Former Cross River State governor and presidential candidate of the Peoples Redemption Party, Donald Duke, has advocated the creation of police formations at both state and local government levels as part of efforts to address Nigeria’s worsening security challenges. He argued that the country’s centralised policing system had struggled to effectively respond to terrorism, banditry, kidnapping and other criminal activities.
Duke said policing should be decentralised, with intelligence gathering made a central component of security operations. According to him, security personnel drawn from local communities would be better placed to detect unusual activities, identify potential threats and provide timely intelligence to security agencies.
Speaking about Nigeria’s security architecture, the former governor maintained that the country had not undertaken a fundamental restructuring of its security system 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 proposed the establishment of state police and, where necessary, police formations at the local government level. He, however, stressed that such institutions should operate under clearly defined rules and be subject to effective judicial oversight to guard against possible abuses.
“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.
Addressing concerns that state governors could use state police to intimidate political opponents, Duke argued that similar allegations had previously been made against the federal police in relation to powerful political figures.
“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 also emphasised the importance of intelligence gathering, saying it should constitute a major part of policing operations. He maintained that officers operating within local communities would have a deeper understanding of the people and developments in those areas.
“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 expressed concern over what he described as the country’s inability to develop sufficient intelligence on Boko Haram despite the insurgency having persisted for almost two decades. He said security agencies should have penetrated the group’s networks to obtain information about its operations and plans.
“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 lessons from the United States, Duke referred to the National Guard as an example of a security arrangement in which responsibilities are distributed across states while remaining part of a wider national structure.
“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.
Beyond policing, Duke identified poverty, unemployment and limited access to legitimate economic opportunities as factors contributing to the spread of terrorism, kidnapping and banditry. He also recalled the Maitatsine uprising of the late 1970s and early 1980s while discussing the relationship between socioeconomic conditions and insecurity.
“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.”
According to Duke, the financial rewards associated with criminal activities could make it increasingly difficult to persuade young people involved in kidnapping and banditry to return to conventional employment.
“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 consequently urged the government to pursue security reforms alongside improvements in education, employment and economic opportunities. Duke maintained that military deployments and other enforcement measures, without addressing the underlying socioeconomic conditions, would not provide a sustainable response 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.
