There has been an increase in food prices, economic challenges, and incidents of insecurity reported across the country.
As a result, on Thursday, the Federal Government said it was contemplating the establishment of state police.
Addressing State House correspondents after an emergency meeting between President Bola Tinubu and state governors at the Aso Rock Villa, the Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris, explained that the process is still in its infancy and would only take shape after more deliberations between stakeholders.
Shekarau, who spoke during an appearance on Channels TV’s Politics Today, on Thursday, lauded Tinubu’s recent directives.
He emphasised the importance of community policing being community-owned, noting that the government would only be coordinating.
The former Kano State governor urged the Federal Government to bolster the number of Nigeria Police personnel through ongoing recruitment drives totalling 60,000.
He said “All we are saying is let there be community policing, community watch. This is what we are talking about. Community intelligence watch, community intelligence gathering.
“These insurgents are not living on the moon. They live with the people. All we need to do is for the government to get the state police coordinated. And ultimately don’t forget, we cannot do this without the traditional institution. That is why that of Kano State succeeded.
“The fear of most political leaders that are arguing against state police is that they are going to be used during the election to terrorise people. If you get a governor that is crazy, he will use it to terrorise opponents and so this is not the kind of policing we are after. What we need is community policing, owned by the communities and the government is only coordinating. So there is a coordinating chain.
Shekarau explained that the Hisbah Guard was founded in Kano, with its headquarters located there, saying, “It operates with various levels of command extending down to the ward and village levels.
“At each of these levels, the district head, village head, and local head are involved, serving as chairpersons of the committees. We have at the state level, the Hibah board comprising the elders, in fact, non-political actors in the board. The police are represented there. The other paramilitary organisations like immigration, and customs, were represented there.”
He mentioned that irrespective of the name, the objective is to empower trained individuals to collect intelligence from diverse communities and support the endeavours of the police and armed forces.
Shekarau remarked that following the success of the Hisbah Guard, “The Police went around promoting community policing. We said yes, it’s our product. We encouraged them to adopt it, replicate it, and even elaborate on it on the floor of the Senate. The governors need to support it; they need to be involved. However, it must not be politicized; it is not intended to be a political vanguard group.”
On more recruitment to strengthen the Police Force, he stated, “One of the things I advise is that there must be a very serious drive in mass recruitment into the Nigerian police. Take Egypt for example. It is about 80 million people, but they have up to 4 million policemen, In Nigeria, we have over 200 million people.
“We don’t have up to a million policemen. It was about 400,000. Former President Mohammadu Buhari promised to recruit 10,000 every year, from the record of police pension on average every year 5000 Policemen leave the service either by dead by retirement by whatever.
“So what we need, let there be a proper plan of about 60,000 recruitment drive nonstop and continuous training. The problem has been that recruitment has not been steady. And there is no way with 350,000 policemen you can police the whole of Nigerian territory, is not practicable, it can’t work.
“The number is inadequate, the equipment is inadequate. The funding is inadequate, the training is inadequate, and the welfare is inadequate. All of these have to be put together to the table to address this insecurity.”
Shekarau, who praised President Tinubu for urging state governors to protect their forests, declared that no meaningful success would be achieved without the governors allowing the Local Government Authorities to function.
He stated, “I think this is a very serious challenge to the governors. One of the problems is, with all due respect to the governors, they are denying the local government their right to operate. When we were in office, everybody knew the Folgore Forest in Kano. Two local governments were taking care of the spot.
“They bought the patrol vehicles, paid the allowances of the mobile police and the military being deployed. Because we gave them all their funds for eight years and never held 1 naira of any of the 44 local governments.
“So the problem is not just enough to tell the governors to go and guide their forest. They should allow the local governments to operate, and give them their funds. Give them the guidelines, give them the orders, they’ll be able to monitor situations through community watching.
“We did it; it is not something abstract, it is doable. I did it in Kano. This directive by Mr. President is in order, but I assure you it’s not going to work until the governors allow the local governments to operate.”
