A chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and former Director-General of Voice of Nigeria (VON), Mr Osita Okechukwu, has expressed strong disapproval to State Police, adding that it would kill Nigeria’s democracy.
“State Police will kill our nascent democracy,” he said.
Okechukwu, a founding member of the ruling APC, stated this at Eke community while speaking with journalists at the burial ceremony of late Chief Bona Udeh, erstwhile Chairman of Udi Local Government Area in Enugu state.
The APC chieftain said that his lack of support for the establishment of State Police “is because of his elementary study of the antics of dictatorship”.
He noted that his elementary study of dictatorship makes him shiver each time he thinks of what will happen to democracy if governors who had since inception of 4th Republic in 1999, acted like emperors are empowered absolutely to kill democracy.
According to him, “what salvation do we earn; when careful consideration gazetted that majority of our dear governors are more or less akin to Emperors, who are constantly in the breach of fine democratic tenets and civil liberties.”
The APC chieftain also said that the governors had thwarted the local councils then working local government system and had blatantly mangled state judiciary and state legislatures into rubber stamps.
“My dear countrymen do, we in all intents and purposes make altruistic sense to further empower Emperors? Emperors hated alternative views, abhorred popular participation and rule of law throughout the history of man.
Proffering workable security solution, Okechukwu noted that as a matter of urgent national importance at this trying period, the country needed well-trained, and well-equipped Special Constabulary Police in line Sections 105-109 of the Nigeria Police Act 2020.
The APC chieftain said that Special Constabulary Police should be equipped with sophisticated arsenal to contain kidnappers, terrorists and insurgents at the grassroots, without authoritarian antics.
He said the Special Constabulary Police he was advocating would be funded by federal and sate governments, jointly recruited from indigenes of the given state in collaboration with the governors.
