A Warri based lawyer and human right activist, Mr. Oghenejabor Ikimi on Sunday said the Nigeria Police Force, NPF, needs restructuring for it perform optimally.
The legal practitioner said the problems of the Police in the country is that, “It is over-centralized.”
He made the assertion during a chat with Our Correspondent while reacting to the scrapping of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad SARS by the Inspector General of Police, IGP Mohammed Adamu.
He said, “The Police needs total restructuring. We need one Inspector Generals of Police in each geopolitical zone of the country.”
Ikimi stressed that, “It has to be decentralized with six Inspector-Generals of Police in each geopolitical regions.
“Fighting crime in South-South is different from fighting crime in South-West because, in the South-South, you have different terrains. You have more of riverine areas.”
While noting that the six regions have their own peculiar security challenges, Ikimi argued that there will be indiscipline over-centralizing the Nigeria Police Force.
“Do you know that each Police Station, they have imprest? It’s provided for in the budget. So, where does it enter from Abuja down to Delta here? Where does it enter?
Reacting to the scrapping of SARS by the IGP, Ikimi said, nobody should be happy yet.
He said the scrapping is just going to be a nomenclature just as he pointed out that SARS is a department in the Nigerian Police Force.
Ikimi said, “They’re going to bring a new SARS and change the nomenclature and put another one. Maybe, Special Robbery Squad, Special Squad.”
He also the #EndSARS protest has not achieved any positive results nationwide.
According to him, “That’s why I did not even think of joining the #EndSARS because the problems in the Nigerian Police Force is more than SARS together.”
