State policing will reduce insecurity – Bauchi Speaker
AREWA AGENDA – The Speaker, Bauchi State House of Assembly, Sulaiman Abubakar, has said the reason State Houses of Assembly across the country are insisting on the creation of state police is that it will help minimise insecurity.
Mr Abubakar, who spoke in an exclusive interview with PREMIUM TIMES in Bauchi, said the residents from troubled areas across the country and especially in the North-west region should be involved in the fight against banditry, like the joint security task force in North East.
The Chairman of the Conference of State House of Assembly Speakers in Nigeria, Mr Abubakar said the conference was convinced of the importance of having state police, hence its inclusion in the proposed constitutional review.
“Like I always say, we the State Assembly members are the closest to the people at the grassroots and we know what the people want. These four items that we submitted to the Constitutional Review Committee are product of extensive deliberations.
”Take the issue of state police, for instance, we are supporting it because we believe it can help minimise the activities of terrorists. Take for instance in Zamfara State, don’t you think it would complement the efforts being made by the existing security agencies like the policemen and the army? Look at the successes being recorded by the Civilian Joint Taskforce in the Borno State.
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“They collaborate with and support the conventional security agencies. That is what we are saying; have something to support the existing ones. States like Zamfara, Kebbi, Kaduna and all the states in that axis, if they have state police, the issue of banditry will be minimised, at least.”
Mr Abubakar argued that locals would be recruited into state polices because they know the criminals in their areas.
He said he was surprised that the National Assembly committees deleted four of the items the state assemblies proposed.
The deleted items, he said, are – state policing, institutionalisation of state assembly service commission, process for removal of state assembly presiding officers and state judicial council.
“This issue of removal of state assembly’s presiding officers, we are not doing it for ourselves. We are not saying we should not be impeached after all our tenures are coming to an end. But we want the process to be fair to presiding officers. When a member or two have problem with a presiding officer, they will just go and mobilise our colleagues and once they get the number which is two third of the members, they just go ahead and announce impeachment.
“We say it is okay, but give those presiding officers a free hearing. If you think you have a reason to remove the Speaker for instance it is okay, bring those allegations and give him the opportunity to response to the allegations. Set a committee to look at the response to the allegations,” he said.
The Conference of Speakers of State Houses of Assembly has been enmeshed in crisis with the Senate Committee on Constitutional Review after the Deputy Senate President, Ovie Omo-Agege, accused members of the assembly of delaying the review process.
Credit: Premium Times
