Anyone who heard Anambra State Governor Charles Soludo address discussants at the recent Arise News TV Abuja Townhall Meeting on State Police will agree that it is a sine qua non to review Nigeria’s revenue allocation formula so that adequate funding can be made available ahead of the introduction of state police in Nigeria.
That counsel by Soludo is as important as the fear expressed by some Nigerians that state governors may use the state police against their political opponents, or that the state police could degenerate into a militia that could be used for partisan, ethnic or other malevolent purposes.
Yes, the possibilities of abuse are high, but that should not deter Nigerians from looking for a new way to police and secure the 356,669 miles, or 923,769 square kilometres, of Nigeria’s largely ungoverned space that is currently facing life-threatening security challenges.
Though there is no verified data, it has been suggested that the Nigeria Police, with about 371,800 officers, has 17 zonal commands, 37 state commands, 274 area commands and 1,300 divisional police commands to police Nigeria’s estimated 242.4 million citizens.
This demonstrates the grossly inadequate guestimate ratio of one police officer to 653 Nigerians, whereas the United Nations recommends one police officer to 450 citizens. It gets worse when the number of roughly 100,000 officers on VIP duties is deducted from the men available for security duties.
