By David AFOLABI
Oyo State Governor Seyi Makinde has tasked the Federal Government to allow state governments to set up their own police structures. The governor called on the Federal Government to empower state assemblies and support efforts toward decentralised policing.
He noted that states already possess the legislative capacity to establish their own policing structure.
Makinde made the remarks during the governorship and legislative primary elections of the Allied Peoples Movement (APM) held at the Watershed Event Centre, Old Ife Road, Ibadan.
The governor said insecurity remained one of the major priorities of his administration and defended the establishment of the Oyo State Security Network Agency, codenamed Amotekun, as a response to security challenges in the state.
“Some people will know insecurity was one of the major pillars of this administration when we established Omitutun phase one and phase two, and it will remain a major pillar. Before this government’s emergence, there was nothing like Amotekun in Oyo State. We wanted State Police. It was because we couldn’t get the State Police that we established Amotekun as a stopgap. They should stop wasting Nigerians’ time,” he said.
Makinde maintained that state police could be created through state legislatures without waiting for what he described as prolonged bureaucracy involving the Federal Government and the Nigeria Police Force.
He said the creation of Amotekun in the South-West provided a model for how state policing structures could emerge through legislation passed by state Houses of Assembly.
“We know how we established Amotekun. The Speaker of the Oyo State House of Assembly is here. We passed a common law in the whole of the South-West. The entire House of Assembly in all states in the South-West passed the law, which led to the creation of Amotekun. The only state that didn’t create Amotekun is Lagos State, and we know it is because their boss didn’t want Amotekun,” he said.
