Some people say central policing system has failed in Nigeria. It is not the system that has failed. Just like many other cases in Nigeria, it is the operators that have failed, the rot started right from the top. It is not enough to say that state governments spend heavily on Federal police in their various states to fight insecurity therefore the states have the financial capacity to fund state police. The reason for the weakness of the central policing system in Nigeria has never been lack of funds. It has been more of misappropriation, nailed by corruption in different forms. If it is just funding, then any wealthy Nigerian should be free to run private police force. If the state governors want to be trusted to run state police, let them demonstrate sufficient maturity, discipline and fair play in other areas such as the use of security funds, the independence of the state houses of assembly, judicial system independence, LGAs independence, procurement processes, recruitment practices, relocation of state universities and other state institutions to the hometowns of the state governors whether in the interest of the state at large or not, aside from other demi-god practices. State governors are in fact the most powerful individuals in the country in terms of carrying out actions unchallenged. The state governors sometimes even gang up and pressure their way through at the federal level. A good example is refusal to allow saving for the rainy day as recommended by Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala as finance minister. Nigerians are poor more because of the actions/inactions of state governments than those of the federal government. Peter Obi, as governor, acted differently in many ways and the results were immediately evident. But how many Peter Obi’s have we had in the past 25 years? The insecurity the governors claim they want to fight with state police was ushered in by their actions/inaction in the first place. Every square inch on Nigerian land space is under one state governor or the other, and under a local government. When Nigerians talk about ungoverned spaces, they usually blame the FGN, instead of the LGA or state government as if the FGN is owing them monthly allocations. The state governors have the capacity to reverse the trend by doing things differently. The time is now.
