GOVERNOR Godswill Akpabio of Akwa Ibom State has thrown his weight behind those calling for state police, saying such arrangement is the panacea to the numerous security problems facing Nigerians.<\/p>\n
While fielding questions from journalists in Uyo at the weekend, Akpabio said \u201cstate police is the only solution to resolving most of the intra-conflicts in the country. If Kogi State had had its own police, the Boko Haram sect probably would not have reached the state. In Niger Delta, kidnapping would not have reached the level it had reached at that time, because the indigenes who would make up the force know the criminals among them and would fish them out. Every family knows who is who. That is why I say state police remains the answer.\u201d<\/p>\n
The governor noted that \u201cin most developed democracies, policing is not a federal thing alone. In Abuja, policing 160 million is not possible. You must allow the local council to have its say in policing. The state government should have its say and then the Federal Government should have its own say in policing. Outside this country, we have federal parastastal, state parastatal and municipal parastatal. These things are found in the country.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe must empower the different states to have the capacity to fight crimes, because when you are depending on federal forces to assist you in fighting crimes, and if they are inadequate, automatically the criminals would overwhelm you. If you post 1,000 policemen to a state and you have 5,000 criminals, they would overwhelm the policemen,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Governor Akpabio canvassed increase in allocation to states and local councils in the country with more responsibilities, reasoning that such would enable states and local council areas undertake and complete many developmental projects.<\/p>\n
Recalling his experience at the economic summit he attended in the United States of America recently, Akpabio said \u201cwe had presentations from people who are coming into the power sector.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had one registered company called \u2018Ikot Abasi Power Generation Plant\u2019 and they made a presentation.\u00a0 We also have a group that is interested in building a refinery, a group is interested in seaport construction. Some of the people who came were actually interested in the agro-allied industry. Some were interested in revamping the agriculture sector.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo for us, it was an eye-opener, yet indeed Nigeria was seen as an attractive destination despite the various challenges we are facing today in the country. I think that if we can have an atmosphere of peace prevailing in the entire country, more investors would come and the fortunes of our children would be turned around.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
GOVERNOR Godswill Akpabio of Akwa Ibom State has thrown his weight behind those calling for state police, saying such arrangement is the panacea to the numerous security problems facing Nigerians.…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3054,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exclusive"],"yoast_head":"\n