Former President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, on Wednesday, said that only the establishment of state police would address the challenge of growing insecurity in the country than community policing.
He said this while playing host to the leadership of the National Association of Ex-Local Government Chairman (ASELGON), led by its Chairman, Chief Albert Asipa.
The former president, in a statement made available to newsmen by his Special Adviser on Media, Kehinde Akinyemi, said the challenge of insecurity around the country should be everybody’s concern.
“Our situation in Nigeria concerns everyone, particularly, the case of terrorism. The case has gotten over the issue of community police. It is now the State police. It is from that State Police that we can now be talking about community police,” he added.
He also spoke on the need to strengthen the traditional system and the local government administration, “which I prepared during the popular Murtala/Obasanjo administration because I believe that there is a need to enable that tier of government to work truly like a local government. They have their own executive, judiciary and legislature.
“They were working and they were very visible, building and managing roads, looking into education, health, local administration, agriculture, but they were all gone,” Obasanjo said.
He commended the initiative behind the formation ASELGON, saying that the development clearly showed that some local chairmen in the country were better than even the top elected leaders.
Obasanjo said that the experience the former chairmen had in local government administration was enough to aspire for higher posts while stressing that some of them have the competence, ability and integrity to get to higher elective posts.
Obasanjo, who was presented with a letter of a life patron, assured that he would look into their request, assuring further that he would be available on request for their needs at all times
Ashipa had earlier told the former President why they decided to come together in all the 774 local governments in the country, declaring, “we can also contribute to the economy and political developments of the country.
“Realising your position as the father of local government in Nigeria, we need you to actualize our goals, hence this all-important visit. And to come and say happy 85th birthday celebrations.”
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