From Juliana Taiwo-Obalonye, Abuja
South–South leader, Chief Edwin Clark has reacted to President Muhammadu Buhari’s Channels Television interview where he again rejected the clamour for state police as a solution to worsening security situation in the country.
The president had said: “State police is not an option. Find out the relationship between local governments and the governors. Are the third tiers of government getting what they are supposed to get constitutionally? Are they getting it? Let the people in local government tell you the truth; the fight between local governments and the governor.”
But Clark, a former minister of information and leader of Pan Niger Delta Delta Forum (PANDEF) said Buhari was also guilty of the excuse that governors would misuse state police. He alleged that the current administration was also using the police to persecute perceived political opponents, thereby undermining the National Assembly and obstructing free speeches.
He said it was unconstitutional and authoritative for Mr. president to say that state police, which was even recommended by the Governor El-Rufai Committee as one of its items under devolution of power to be transferred from the Executive List in Schedule 1 of the 1999 Constitution, as amended, to Schedule II of the Concurrent List, should be discarded.
He therefore urged President Buhari to give in to the demands of allowing the creation of state police.
He stated this in a statement in Abuja, yesterday, entitled, ”Majority of Nigerians believe in state police because it is one cardinal points or one of the ingredients in a federal system of government.”
He said the truth and not lies remain essential in running a democratic government and that there was the need for proper guidance, survival and unity of the country.
“Mr President dismissed the call for state police in the country. He said that state police was not an option, that governors will misuse it. He gave an unrelated instance of the relationship between state governors and local governments, that there is no functional local government in the country.
“While the president is right that no local government in this country truly functions as provided by the constitution, not even the joint account under which state governments receive monies on behalf of the local governments, because the accounts are fully controlled by the state governors, it is not enough to dismiss the demand for state police.
“It may be necessary to refer to some Sections of the 1999 Nigerian Constitution. Section 214 (1) says: There shall be a police force for Nigeria, which shall be known as the Nigerian Police force, and subject to the provisions of this section no other police shall be established for the federation or any part thereof.
“And Section 215 (4) says subject to the provisions of this section, the governor of a state or such commissioner of the government of the state as he may authorise in that behalf, may give to the commissioner of police of that state such lawful directions with respect to the maintenance and securing of public safety and public order within the state as he may consider necessary, and the commissioner of police shall comply with those directions or cause them to be complied with provided that before carrying out any such directions under the foregoing provisions of this subsection the commissioner of police may request that the matter be referred to the president or such minister of the government of the federation as may be authorised in that behalf by the President for his directions.”
“I humbly submit that the above Section 214 (1), does not portray tenets of a federal system of government, but a unitary form of government. Hence the 1999 Constitution is rejected by democratic Nigerians who believe in a federal system of government. In a similar manner, Section 215 (4), does not really contain the ingredients of a federal system of government. As I stated in my recent interview, state p oleic is a popular agitation by Nigerians and was robustly discussed and agreed upon during the 2014 National Conference.”