Category: Opinion

Muftau Gbadegesin

SIR: The National Bureau of Statistics recently found the unemployment rate in Nigeria to be 27.1% at the second quarter of 2020 from 23.1% it was in the third quarter of 2018, the last time such report was made public. Since that report hit the ground, arguments and counterarguments have ensued regarding government’s efforts at tackling this existential threat.

For critics, government’s attitude across tiers is at best lackadaisical, nonchalant and indifferent while at worst, dispiriting, demoralizing and discouraging. With that heartbreaking report, unemployment now stood at a staggering rate as more Nigerians, ready and agile continued to roam cities in desperate hunt for scarce jobs. For a serious, committed and people-oriented government, such heart wrenching revelation would not only have been worrisome, and troubling but concrete and workable plans intended to holistically tackle and address such scourge would have been hashed out.

Aside NBS jolting figures, emerging facts paint an uglier picture than presently peddled by government. This proposition is partly hanged on two-fold conjecture: lack of central database initiated to capture unemployment rate in the country from urban dwellers to inhabitants of hinterlands, and, the unwillingness of most Nigerians to disclose their job statuses.

Take Tunde, a young graduate, a beneficiary of N-Power programme before his service year. During his compulsory National Youth Service Corps programme, his volunteering job with N-Power was on as was his monthly allowance from NYSC. This kind of discrepancy would have been tracked had we a national database in place to trace such double benefits. This lack of central database and unwillingness of Nigerians to disclose their job statuses, if continued to be treated with levity, will keep Nigeria’s quest for accurate data hampered. Data collection, with penchant for honesty and sincerity requires strong political will. But for a country fraught with corruption and tribalism, such has remained a white elephant project. In other words, figures reeled off by NBS will remain a subject of debate both from pro and anti-government critics and dingbats for a while now.

A disturbing four million Nigerians were estimated to applied for the paltry 400,000 N-Power Batch C jobs. From all indications, this startling disclosure does not just portend a serious danger for Nigeria but also put the country on the recipe of social unrest. While the country continues to sit comfortably on a keg of gun-powder, it is important to draw examples from revolutionary Arab spring which swept Tunisia, Egypt, Syria, Algeria, and others occasioned by high unemployment rate, with systemic, wanton and institutional corruption as close relative.

• Muftau Gbadegesin, uftaugbadegesin@gmail.com

Femi Oluwasanmi

SIR: The amnesty granted repentant Boko Haram members under the Operation Safe Corridor at a time of continuing killings, bombings and surges in Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps is misplaced priority. On June 11, 2020, the Defence Headquarters, Abuja, stated that 603 former Boko Haram fighters will be reintegrated to their communities after undergoing Operation Safe Corridor’s de-radicalisation, rehabilitation and reintegration programme.

Though this seems to be in line with international best practice, looking at the neglect that the victims of Boko Haram continue to suffer at the various IDP camps across the country, the programme would need recalibration to make it equitable.

Only recently, the governor of Borno State, Professor Babagana Zulum was attacked by the Boko Haram at Bama Local Government Area despite the location of a mega military camp in the area. This attack prompted an emergency meeting of the Nigerian Governors Forum following which they later met with President Muhammadu Buhari, on the worsening security situation. With gory tales of the murder and mayhem of the terrorists not abating, Ali Ndume, the senator representing one of the districts in the region would later threaten to take legal action against the military should they continue with the programme.

Apart from the senator, there are others that have questioned the legal and moral basis of the programme, putting into consideration the huge damage done by the sect to the Northeast and the nation at large.

Based on the report of the Nigerian Security Tracker (NST), the number of people killed in 2,021 incidents involving Boko Haram from June 2011 to June 2018 is 37,530. While the number of displaced persons in the conflict according to the United Nations’ Refugee Agency is 2.4 million. This not to talk of more than seven million at risk of starvation.

Also, the nefarious activities of this sect have led to the degradation of infrastructure, including the closing or destruction of more than half of the schools in the region and the near-complete breakdown of an already weak public health system. Most people living in the communities cannot sleep with their two eyes closed because of the continuous threat from the Boko Haram.

Yet, the same communities where these terrorist elements have wreaked havoc were not carried along in the so-called re-integration and rehabilitation programme. One would have expected that community engagement would be the first step in the rehabilitation programme.

As if this is not bad enough, most of the IDP camps have been reduced to glorified prisons where victims beg for food and other basic social amenities to survive.

While it is not a bad idea to adopt international best practice in handling a sensitive matter like the rehabilitation of the terrorists, it becomes dangerous when it is done at the expense of the welfare of the victims of their horrific activities.

Perhaps the military should have waited till the end of the war when the attacks of the sect no longer pose serious threat to the economy, unity and peace of the country before launching the programme. Or, they should have kept the so-called repentant terrorists from the region they only recently terrorised pending the time those communities would recover from the trauma occasioned by their murderous activities.

We urge the military to re-evaluate this programme with a focus on empowerment the victims to reconnect them back to the economic mainstream. That way, “Operation Safe Corridor” will not metamorphose into something else in future.

• Femi Oluwasanmi, Ibafo, Ogun State.

Ejike Anyaduba

SIR: It is bad enough to imagine a Nigeria without youths, but worse to have them without a future. At a reasoned estimate, an average Nigerian youth is out of humour with his environment. He sees it as stifling his drive and resents it. He struggles through school which he sometimes spends longer time than he should because of government/labour uneasy relationship. He survives the difficult patch and graduates into the labour market with little chance of securing a job. He searches diligently, but secures none. He roams the street in hope that fortune may favour him singularly. But he soon realizes there is no fortune as the Nigerian factor dutifully puts him at the wrong side of the employable.

Eager to succeed, he decides to channel his energy into personal enterprise. He starts a small-scale business after talking with the banks. A year or two into the business, unstable policies, power outage, insecurity etc conspire and lay waste his effort.  In time, he falls behind in repaying his loan, goes belly up and closes shop. He trudges on the street, frustrated. He cops a sad image as he reflects on his situation. “A man”, he remembers Thomas Carlyle, Scottish philosopher and essayist saying, “willing to work, and unable to find work, is perhaps the saddest sight that fortune’s inequality exhibits under the sun”.

He rues his state as anger wells up in him. Fortune has not offered him as much opportunity as it did the generation before his. Opportunities that saw youths of the time ascend the height of their chosen careers in good time. He does not need to dig deep into history to know that Chief Anthony Enahoro edited the Southern Nigerian Defender, one of the chains of Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe’s newspapers at the age of 21, making him the youngest in Nigeria. Or that most Nigerian leaders of the time, both civilian and military, led the country in their youth. Gowon, Ojukwu, and others were quite young when leadership was thrust upon them.

Sadly, everything has changed. Things have taken a tumble for the worse. The Nigerian youth is in deep struggle. He has no job; no opportunities. The state neither provides nor points with justice to any youth empowerment plan for self-sustenance. She appears to want to carry on without her youth and the future of the country.

No time in the history of Nigeria was the story of her youth – her future — told with so much uncertainty. No job for those willing to work. No access to others lucky enough to be in employment to rise. No empowerment for those who practice some craft. Often money mapped out for skill acquisition ends up in wrong hands.

Those who should be in retirement stay in service on account of forged documents while those already in retirement are not tired and still interfere with activities inside the system. Quite often placement becomes very difficult because those who led Nigerian in the second republic are still leading her. How, for example, does Nigeria think it right to engage the services of some of her current ministers over and above her youth with same qualification?

It may be argued that engaging the youth does not provide all the answers to our problem as some of them in leadership positions have not acquitted themselves. This may be true, but pitted against those who have excelled in leadership, politics, economy, sports etc. the position pales in comparison. There are youths who have pursued their assignment with great commitment and vision.

It serves no purpose to recycle leaders in a country that has a surfeit of youthful talents. Leadership requires both mental and physical strength neither of which should be played down. A country desirous of growth cannot sacrifice her youths for any reason. No matter what promise recycling of old leaders holds, the game does not worth the candle. The world is moving at a very fast pace perhaps too fast for gerontocracy to catch up. The youths should be encouraged to lead while the elders sit back and offer advice. Nigeria cannot afford otherwise. The consequences will be costly.

• Ejike Anyaduba. Abatete, Anambra State.

Ibrahim Mustapha

SIR: Former minister of petroleum resources, Mrs Diezani Alison-Madueke, has said that the societal values have disintegrated to the extent that online fraudsters otherwise known as yahoo boys have become role models in Nigerian society. The former minister spoke at the event organized by the Ijaw National Development Group. The former minister said: “The ones that have swag, the yahoo yahoo boys as my son would say, these in short are the role model they are looking at. These are the ones that reinforce negative societal norms and values. The former minister concluded; “There are no shortcuts to working your way up the ladder of life. Progressing in life in work and relationship marital or otherwise is always dependent on consistent and hard work”.

As the Hausa saying goes, Kayi amfani da fadin malam  amman kada kayi koyi da halinsa which literally means understand the message not the messenger, there is nothing wrong for Diezani to preach moral values to Nigerians at a time our productive youths have turned to yahoo boys. Of course, there is growing concern on the rising cases of cybercrime in the country and the world at large. These crimes among the youths have led to the enactment of laws by many countries to contain it including Nigeria.

However, the millions naira questions begging for answers are: How do Nigerians youths find themselves in this unlawful thriving business? What motivates them? Are their actions due to the country’s hostile environment where survival remains for the fittest?

It would have been good if the former minister had pondered a little bit and reflected on the causes of this mess. To begin with how Nigerian youths find solace in the yahoo yahoo business, one has to look at the country’s rate of unemployment. In the last two years or more precisely, unemployment rose exponentially in the country. The unemployment and underemployment came at a time when our universities, polytechnic and colleges of education continue to churn out many graduates into the labour market.

While I agree with the former minister on the disintegration of the societal values in the country which made the yahoo boys to become negative role models, lack of jobs opportunities among the youths have also contributed greatly towards this bad trend. What about the menace of corruption? Politics which should have been used to foster growth and national development have become a gravy train for wealth accumulation. The former minister cannot deny this simple fact. We have seen funds mean for educational or socio-economy development tampered with and often times outrightly looted. Diezani should have made a distinct difference between the yahoo boys who swindle their victims at slightest opportunity and our politicians who stole public funds with impunity. While some segment of the society looks at yahoo boys as their role model, others emulate the likes of Diezani who are alleged to feed fat or are living in opulence from the proceeds of corruption.

The former minister’s message is nothing but the truth. Let us understand or get the messages she is passing not as a former powerful minister who has been on run since 2015 on the alleged financial embezzlement.

• Ibrahim Mustapha, Pambegua, Kaduna State.

Kene Obiezu

SIR: Truth is a shield that no weapon no matter how sharp or savage can penetrate.

Former Central Bank Deputy Governor, Obadiah Mailafia, certainly worked up a storm recently when he appeared on a radio programme and aired views that rankled both the Department of State Security and the Nigeria Broadcasting Commission (NBC).

While the Nigeria Broadcasting Commission, citing its controversial code, has since brought down its sledgehammer on the Abuja based radio station to the tune of five million naira, the Department of State Security subjected Mailafia to its infamous grilling.

Of course, in continuation of the nightmarish problems it has so far caused Nigeria and Nigerians, insecurity was again behind the sledgehammer pounded on the radio station and Mailafia ‘s long hours with the DSS.

Since Nigeria‘s security situation began to seriously deteriorate with Boko Haram launching full operations in just over a decade ago, Nigeria has tallied innumerable losses. Whether it is in lives so swiftly cut off, livelihoods swept away or infrastructure reduced to dust, the country has felt the full fury of rampaging criminal groups.

The country‘s security agencies have fought back at great cost. Young men and women who should be the future of Nigeria‘s armed forces have been felled at their prime, thus plunging the future into a cloud of uncertainty.

However, one of the greatest yet most subtle achievements of the insecurity currently ravaging the country is the shrinking of Nigeria‘s democratic space. Under the guise of national security, successive Nigerian governments have found justification for clamping down on the right Nigerians have to free speech. It is in that light that Mailafia ‘s travails and the pangs of the Abuja based radio station can be properly appreciated.

The NBC‘s code which served as the plank upon which the five-million-naira fine was raised received a frosty reception from Nigerians at its introduction. Many predicted it to be the gag that would be clamped over Nigerian mouths. That prediction is proving true. The fine came as some sort of confirmation and many Nigerians have railed and rallied.

As the frustrations of living in Nigeria have continued to mount amidst increasing insecurity and rising cost of living, Nigerians more than ever have cause to ventilate their grievances, share their fears and demand better lives from those they have entrusted   their affairs to.

However, with each day that passes under the current administration, this freedom to ventilate, to express anger and frustration continues to receive new and carefully orchestrated blows. It would seem that there is a well hatched plan to concretize   the docility of Nigerians by taking away their ability to speak out at all.

In what is an appalling irony, it would seem that the very institutions which ordinarily should be protecting the right even the most offensive Nigerians have to free speech are the ones wielding the cudgels to take those rights away.

Life in Nigeria grows more difficult by the day. Most of this difficulty is man-made and with vigorous deliberations and discussions, common solutions may be found.

The Nigeria Broadcasting Commission and other state actors entrusted with the responsibility of preserving the space in which these discussions can be held must owe their allegiance only to the law which creates them and to Nigerians. Any contrary affiliation or action would be nothing short of a baleful betrayal.

• Kene Obiezu, Abuja.

Ashiru Dan’Azumi

SIR: Since its creation in May 1967 by the then military government under General Yakubu Gowon, Kano State experienced different types of governance ranging from political to military one, but, most of the people that governed the great people of Kano have tended to centralize capital projects and ministries within the metropolitan which comprises local government like Kano municipal, Fagge, Gwale, Tarauni, Nasarawa, Dala and by extension Ungogo and Kumbotso respectively.

Abraham Lincoln, a former American president propounded a famous definition of politics as a ‘government of the people, for the people and by the people’. Therefore, leaders must remember that the votes of the people are what brings them to their position irrespective of where those people emerged from.  Why can’t most capital project and ministries be extended to local governments outside of the metropolis?

In most developed countries, you can only identify the differences between urban and rural areas by location not from the infrastructure and the equality in providing them, the standard of such projects is the same whether they are in the city or not.

Audu Bako, though a military administrator is an icon of emulation in that regard, He built the Audu Bako State Secretariat and constructed the Bagauda Dam to Supply Kadawa irrigation for Kano central people, Thomas Danbatta water supply for Kano North and Tiga Dam in Bebeji Local Government for Kano south.

Furthermore, Bako built most of modern Kano’s landmark structure and set the first plan for developing and promoting tourism. The dividing of trade and industry division from the then ministry of finance cannot be over emphasized.

There came Alhaji Abubakar Rimi, the first civilian governor who banned the payment of land tax Jangali”, which people throughout the state especially the poor warmly celebrated. He also laid the foundation of rural electrification.

Another notable effort is that of Engr. Rabi’u Musa Kwankwaso in his second tenure as governor, with his incomplete dualization of five kilometers in every local government.

I urge the present government to duly implement its program ‘Lungu Kalkal, Karkara salamu alaikum’, and initiate more projects to at least avoid Urban-Rural politics which vehemently threated the peace and harmony of Kano in the 2019 general elections.

And if possible, some Kano ministries may need to be relocated to local governments outside the city as this will also trigger equality in governance.

• Ashiru Dan’Azumi, BUK Kano.

By Ngwu Nweze

If Ndigbo do not tell Arthur Eze that money is not everything, he will destroy whatever value is left in Igboland. The self-acclaimed Igbo Messiah (Ozo Igbo Ndu) has become a most irritating pain in the neck of Ndigbo. In the past 30 years, Arthur has brought everything he has touched to ruin. Eastern Plastics, Premier Cashew Industry, Anambra Vegetable Oil Products (AVOP), Premier Brewery Limited, Orient Bank and even his own Triax Group of Companies all melted under his cancerous touch. And now, Arthur has turned his attention to Igbo presidency project and the government of Anambra State. Now is the time to tell him to stop!

Anyone who has followed the appalling drama playing out in Anambra State at the moment will not miss the underlying message – mutiny! Arthur is currently leading a rebellion against the government of Anambra State. This is not opposition as we know it. This is an act of rebellion. When a man is puffed up by his belief in his own invisibility, he turns himself into a menace to society. That was exactly what Arthur Eze did when he took 12 traditional rulers from Anambra State to Abuja on an ill-advised mission to create disaffection for the governor of Anambra State at the presidency. Arthur is leading a mutiny against Anambra State. He should be told ‘enough’ by Nigerians who value decency and order in the society. The traditional rulers are the leaders of the grassroots in our democracy. Anyone who successfully turns a sizeable number of them against the sitting government under any guise has masterminded civilian coup plot. That is exactly what Arthur Eze has done. He is hell bent on setting Anambra on fire. He will succeed only if we support him with our silence.

Without a doubt, Arthur Eze appears to have a brutal knee firmly pressed into the neck of Ndigbo. He ridicules our aspiration for the presidency. He spits in the faces of our political leaders at will. He is locked up in a mortal battle with neighbouring villages in Anambra State. He is at war with the novelist, Chimamanda Adichie. He instigated criminal charges against Pius Nweke, the CEO of Best Aluminium, who, unlike him, has created thousands of jobs for the people. He has no respect for constituted authority.

For many decades, Arthur strutted the entire Southeast Nigeria like a winged monster in a Hollywood movie, talking down on his enemies and giving the impression that with money he could buy anybody including one half of heaven. He moves around in the longest and most expensive vehicular convoy in Igboland. He feels that everyone is beneath him. He does not weigh his utterances. At a time when his Igbo people feel entitled to provide Nigeria’s next president, Arthur told them that they were not good enough for the position in clear terms. Only Northerners are good enough to lead Nigeria because they gave Arthur contracts. Nothing is sacred to him.

But Arthur Eze should be reminded that all his philanthropy does not stretch beyond dashing people money and that begging is not in the DNA of Ndigbo. This is one truth Arthur must be told!

It is embarrassing to see that just because he could sell a few oil wells, Arthur Eze has forgotten the capricious nature of his own culture. He is blind to the fact that a masquerade that turns against its minders in a stab of arrogance risks the humiliation of being deserted at the market square! This is the inconvenient truth we must tell Arthur Eze!

• Nweze writes from Ajalli, Orumba North LGA of Anambra State

By Ndubuisi Okechukwu

There is an urgent need for Governor Willie Obiano to rescind the ill-advised suspension of 12 Anambra royal fathers.

It is a fact today that the statement issued by Mr. James Eze, the Chief Press Secretary to Anambra State Governor, suspending 12 traditional rulers in the state on August 11, 2020 has thrown the sleeping communities into chaos.

Eze, in the statement, claimed the royal fathers’ offence was that they travelled out of their domains without permission from either the governor or their respective local government area chairmen.

Though the governor’s spokesman claimed the decision to suspend the traditional rulers was that of the Anambra State Traditional Rulers’ Council, the issuance of the statement by Eze, who by the job specification of his office as a Chief Press Secretary to the Governor, ought to be speaking on matters that concern his boss, has no doubt exposed the mystery behind the purported suspension as not only political, but a matter Obiano is directly interested in.

Also, the statement and its author equally showed that the governor is using some of his aides to fan the embers of disharmony capable of throwing the state into an era of confusion and anarchy.

The above allusion is premised on the fact that the suspension, when viewed from all sides, is wrong, unconstitutional, uncivil, barbaric and anachronistic.

First, 1999 Nigeria constitution as amended, chapter four sections 40 and 41 under the Fundamental Human Rights allows every citizen the right to freedom of movement and association.

Also it is evident in many Nigeria communities, including Igbo, that some royal fathers reside and do businesses outside their kingdoms.

It therefore becomes very clear that these royal fathers, whose sin, according to Mr. James Eze and his boss, was that they travelled outside the state without permission, have not done anything wrong before the law and the people.

Traditional rulers have the right to move and associate with people without anyone preventing or interfering into their activities.

Without mincing words, Obiano’s action is to gag the royal fathers so as not to allow them spoil his political calculation which is to self-select the next governor of Anambra come November, 2021.

The governor had in recent times made political watchers realise this unconventional political arithmetic known to the people of the state through sponsorship of several publications in the print, electronic and social media.

Even before the suspended traditional rulers react, it is predictable that this statement now in the media is already overheating the areas.

It therefore becomes imperative for Governor Obiano, as the Chief Security Officer of the state, to urgently have a rethink over this move due to obvious problem it could trigger up.

Anambra people no doubt are peace-loving, but that is not to say they do not know their rights and privileges when dragged to the mud.

While the people wait for the governor to rescind this total aberration which negates the constitutional provisions, norms, customs and tradition, let me warn that further delay to revert these curious suspensions is dangerous.

• Okechukwu wrote from Okija

Esan Olumide Afolabi

SIR: On October 19, 2010, 3.5 million people besieged Paris, France’s capital to remonstrate President Nicolas Sarkozy’s pension reforms, which included raising the symbolic and much-fought-for basic age of retirement from 60 years to 62 years. The greve generale (general strike) was intense on the sixth day as Sarkozy was forced to appeal for calm and responsibility after cars were burnt, shop windows smashed and at least two photojournalists were assaulted in Nanterre, west of Paris, and Lyon. The oil refinery’s participation in the strike brought everything to a halt. Just under 4,000 petrol stations of a total of 12,500 dispensed fuel.

Pathetically in Nigeria, civil servants remonstrate because they want the retirement age upped. They want to be in service until death do them part. The Frenchman knew that once he attained 60 years, the French government will never, ever renege as regards pension entitlements. This, lamentably is the bane of corruption in the system. As long as civil servants see their retired colleagues die in queues because of retirement entitlements (not benefits), this malfeasance will linger. The slogan (NYSC) – Now Your Suffering Continues should not be extended to pensioner who assiduously served their motherland.

Sometime ago, the former managing director of First Bank, the former CBN governor, and the erstwhile Emir of Kano, admonished his principal – (President Goodluck Jonathan) to jettison his seven-point agenda and embrace one or two of these points. Sanusi Lamido Sanusi is one Nigerian whose encephalon can utterly develop this economy. In the words of Bernard Baruch – “Vote for the man who promises least for he will be the least disappointing”. This lucidly corroborates Sanusi’s theory.

As an undergraduate at University of Ibadan (1989 – 1993), I knew a friend who did not go home until he graduated. While on campus, he sent money to his impecunious parents. This guy was one of the few students that had clippers. Students were always on queue to crop their hair, female students who preferred low haircuts inclusive. This business thrived because of constant electricity. A nation can never, ever develop without constant electricity.

If I were the president, the national grid philosophy will be jettisoned and states will be funded to have their independent power projects. I posit that the ministry of power is too enormous and convoluted to be managed by an individual. Thus six energy aficionados should be transferred to the six geopolitical zones and are expected to meet the energy needs of these zones and report to the minister of power. We cannot continue to go round in circles.

I urge our indefatigable president, Muhammadu Buhari to look at this holistically and dispassionately so that this chronic joblessness everywhere is discontinued.

What Nigerians crave is Power! Power!! Power!!!

• Esan Olumide Afolabi, Yabatech, Lagos.

Ademola Orunbon

SIR: Nigeria’s past, present and even the future, makes the establishment and operation of federal, state and local government policing or law enforcement un-debatably mandatory! Nigeria needs and should have federal police, state police and local police! It just makes sense! The local people, the local authorities know the neighborhoods, the local people and local circumstances better!

The advent of military form of government, it was that turned the three-tier federal system on its head, with Nigeria remaining a federal system in name only. The military unlike in democracy had a command structure from the federal levels to state right to local governments. They were compelled to do the bidding of the federal military government centrally controlled, without dissension; this was to be expected, as military orders are to be obeyed!

It is time for us to jettison all misgivings about state governments misusing or abusing their control over the police command for the greater good, but of course with adequate safeguards to prevent such.

In America, there is the Federal Bureau of Investigations, the Bureau of Firearms and Tobacco, the Secret Service and the National Security Agency. There are also the Customs, the Drug Enforcement Agency, US Postal Police etc. All these are federal law enforcement agencies that take care of mostly domestic crimes and the Central Intelligence Agency takes care of mostly overseas espionage and enforcement of US policies wishes. All the 50 states have individual state police that enforce state laws and regulations, without much interference from the federal law enforcements. New York City is like Lagos Island or Lagos Mainland Local Government, and has its own Police Department of about 40,000- strong personnel.

Nigeria needs aggressive, fair and new paradigm of policing. Imagine sending a guy who cannot swim to be a marine police officer in Burutu, Bomadi or Epe or such other ravine areas of Nigeria? Does it not make more sense to send a police woman or man who, in additional to mastering the tricks of swimming are very much at home with the marshlands? Is it not easier for someone from Numa to know who the trouble makers in Numa? Is it not likely that the policewoman or man from Damaturi or Gombe knows the trouble makers in their towns? Local policing not only makes logistical and law enforcement sense, it is also more cost effective as the treasury will then spared the expense of moving federal police officers from state to state in Nigeria, and also the expense of accommodating moved police officers.

Policing in Nigeria urgently need reforms, including but, not limited to the establishment of state and local police departments, the establishment of Civilian Complaints Review Boards or Commissions in every state and Local Government Areas to oversee and act as safeguard against police misconduct, police abuse or brutalities. Nigeria will save money doing all these and the police will regain their needed respect.

Lives and property will then be secure and insecurity will be a thing of the past! Effectiveness will result from decentralization hence the formation of state and local government police is the way to go.

• Ademola Orunbon, Abeokuta, Ogun State.