Insistent Pleas for State Police: A Possible Sign of Insanity?

By Polycarp Onwubiko

 


The Daily Sun news in the November 22, 2023 edition, captioned "Ohaneze, Afenifere, Middle Belt Forum Press for State Police," was 'laughable' (for want of any other adjective to qualify the age-long agitation by well-meaning Nigerians). This is in view of the fact that the time-honored, feverish, and nationwide clarion call for proper security arrangements in a heterogeneous society like Nigeria (as seen in sane and sanitized federations worldwide) has been discarded in the Aso Rock since the return of civilian administrations.

There is a saying that "repeating a passionate appeal for something (or doing something wrong often and hoping to be taken as rightful) which has always been snubbed or rejected by the 'powers that be' and repeating it with the hope that the entrenched conscienceless 'power' will see reason to accept it is a form or variant of insanity."

Concerning the nationwide clarion calls for State Police, variously called "multi-level policing" and "decentralized security architecture," as seen in federations worldwide and even practiced in the First Republic in Nigeria under the realistic principles of the federal system of government in the 1960 Independence constitution, the "powers that be" (the purported owners of Nigeria), referenced in the Daily Sun news, taunted the Ohaneze Ndigbo, Afenifere, and Middle Belt Forum. They reminded them that the contraption called the 1999 Constitution, supposedly under amendments ostensibly to suit the unitary mindset of the 'powers that be,' cannot allow state police unless it is amended.

Of course, they know that if such a bill goes to the National Assembly, it will be dumped, as was done during the gimmicks of the committee on amendments of the constitution by the past National Assembly. The National Assembly was deliberately populated by northern Muslims. The Legislature was lopsided in favor of the North, courtesy of the creation of surplus local government councils in the North by the military regime. In line with the deliberate plan, local government councils were used to create Federal Constituencies with the deliberate objective that when the civilian administration comes, the north will always have more members and more votes during debates in the National Assembly at the expense and detriment of the southern members in the Legislature.

In a pure mockery of the repeated calls for multi-level policing by Ohaneze Ndigbo, Afenifere, and Middle Belt Forum (an integral part of restructuring the lopsided federation for equity, fairness, and proper sharing of national wealth), the brain trust of the "Northern Political Emirates Establishment," the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF), said: "...unless and until a lacuna in the current Constitution of the Federal Government is addressed, the clamor for state and local government police cannot be realized."

Certainly, there is no way the National Assembly, deliberately lopsided in favor of the Northern Muslims (the supposed Core North), can support the creation of multi-level policing because it will disrupt their Islamization agenda. Southerners MUST note that the ONLY reason the 'core north' vehemently kicked against restructuring the lopsided federation with decentralized security architecture as an integral part is that the state governments in the southern part of the country and the middle belt states will enact laws banning open grazing and compel cattle owners to purchase lands and establish RANCHES, as obtained in civilized countries worldwide.

Of course, the "Northern Political Emirates Establishment," otherwise referred to as "Caliphate Colonialists and Cabalist Hegemonists," wants the centralized security architecture that enables their terrorists masquerading as herdsmen, imported from the Sahel region of West Africa, to occupy all the forests and jungles nationwide and, with AK-47 rifles, kill people who raise alarms over the consumption of their farm produce. They don't want to hear about ranches because it will disrupt their Islamization agenda.

So, it is laughable, if not foolhardy, for Ohaneze Ndigbo, Afenifere, and Middle Belt Forum to be REPEATING calls for State Police and then relax into their shells like tortoises and crabs. The only sensible thing is for the middle belt ethnic nationalities and Southern Kaduna, as well as the South East, South West, and South-South geopolitical zones, to stand their ground for the immediate restructuring of the lopsided federation to restore equity, fairness, and justice in the distribution of the nation's wealth.

A great legal luminary, Afemi Babalola, SAN, and vice chancellor of Babalola University, in his column in Vanguard, advised that the 2023 general elections should be postponed until the lopsided federation is restructured, but the powers that be and the Emilokan conclave shunned the timely advice. What has happened now? Nigeria has become a mockery of democracy in the eyes of the international community.

There is nothing to move the country out of the rot until the lopsided federation is restructured to reinvent the inexorable principles of the federal system of government as practiced in the First Republic. Let the Southerners continue groping in the dark, hoping that the entrenched conscienceless transactional political hawks will one day realize that the centralized security architecture has ruined the economy and thrown the country into a tailspin from which it may never recover.

 

Polycarp Onwubiko, public policy analyst.

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