A former governor of Rivers, Celestine Omehia, has opposed the call for the creation of state police, arguing that state governors have not demonstrated the necessary competence to handle such a responsibility.

Mr Omehia stated this on Tuesday in Abuja, while speaking about his new book, entitled ‘Restructuring Nigeria: The Way Forward’.

The renowned legal luminary stated that he does not subscribe to state police because they would be easily abused by state governors, who would use them to target political opponents, especially during elections.

Mr Omehia added that aside from the fact that governors lack the competency to handle state police, the approval would overburden them.

He said that, though countries such as America, Germany, Australia, the United Kingdom, and India are operating state police successfully because they work strictly on their constitutions that established them, obedience to the constitution would be a problem in Nigeria.

“In every country, security is truly the responsibility of the federal government because it has to secure first the internal affairs of the state and also to defend the boundary lines of the country. From my book, the security of the country should be the responsibility of the federal government.

“It could be overstretching to give that responsibility to the federal government alone, but I am not subscribing to state police. You know already that many people who are governors don’t have open minds for the general good of the people; they have personal interests, and so they use whatever is available in terms of force.

“You can see now that in Nigeria, violence is one tool in politics to win an election. If state police are created, it becomes an easy and willing tool to be used for every election by the governors to attack political opponents,” he said.

(NAN)