State police in Nigeria is long overdue — Richard Amuwa

PUBLIC Relations Officer of the Association of Licensed Private Security Practitioners of Nigeria (ALPSPN), Mr Richard Amuwa, has said that state police is long overdue in Nigeria.

Amuwa, made the admonition on Friday while speaking at the 10th anniversary Public Lecture/Dinner of Private Guards (PG) with its theme as Strategic security management, a panacea for national development held at the Mauve 21, Ibadan.

He noted that private security personnel in the country too are professionally trained enough to carry guns in carrying out their legitimate duties.
He urged the Federal Government to license private guards to carry arms like vigilantes manning their various communities.

Amuwa, who is the Managing Director of Mega Guards said state police would be awesome, with the decentralisation of the operation of the Nigerian Police and would help in making security better in the country.

“When we have good security personnel on the ground with right facilities, there would be rapid national development. We have been advocating the fact that if Nigeria cannot adopt state policing, why can’t we have community policing?

“Any country that exists and does not have a proper security system, naturally, nobody will invest in that country’s economy, and that is why I cherished the topic for this year’s public lecture.

“To me and as a security consultant, Nigeria is overripe for the state police, the essence of having state police is when there is so much insecurity everywhere.

“One of the problems I noticed is that will our lawmakers allow the state police to be? Also, most states are not viable financially to take care of the state police. Lagos State is doing awesomely well in terms of state police.

ALSO READ: More than 100 migrants storm border of North African Spanish enclave

“We have only about 350,000 policemen to protect 180m Nigerians, that is not enough. The government should look at private security companies that have the well-trained personnel and license them to carry arms. They should also be monitored like the case of Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps,” Amuwa said.

Meanwhile, convener of the event, Mr Seyi Alaba, said that private guards have a lot of limitations which did not allow their duties to be effective.

Alaba, who is the Managing Director of PG said, “We have a lot of limitations that we face and unfortunately, we are not getting enough from the government. We are working without resources, no infrastructure to assist our operations.

“We don’t carry arms and that is why some people prefer to use vigilantes who carry arms to us. Every private security outfit in this country is licensed to operate, our details are with the government. “If vigilantes can carry guns in carrying out their duties, I mean, we who are learned and well trained should be equally allowed to operate with arms.

“Also, if anything happens, we are on our own and we want the government to do more in terms of putting some infrastructure in place, like public cameras and lot of things that can enhance our effectiveness in the society.”