Enugu state governor, Peter Mbah, has called for financial autonomy and investment in technology for state police when created. He made this known during a town hall meeting organized by Arise News in Abuja on Thursday.
Governor Mbah emphasized that prioritizing security through adequate funding for state police services and investment in technology would enable those responsible for security at the subnational level to deliver the expected outcomes. According to him, the importance of funding the state police system effectively cannot be overemphasized.
He shared the Enugu state experience on the importance of prioritizing security, recalling that at the inception of his administration in 2023, the state was under siege, with nightlife gone, some areas even in the state capital barricaded, Mondays gone, while many students lost an entire academic year, as they could not sit important final-year examinations due to the illegal sit-at-home orders.
To address this, his administration invested hugely in technology, building a Safe City Surveillance System with CCTV cameras that are AI-enabled, as well as having both static and mobile cameras. This comes with huge costs, but the human element is also important, which is essentially why they set up the Distress Response Squad (DRS). The governor wants immediate action because matters of security are measured in minutes.
They must be in a position where they are able to act swiftly. So, they must build the capability to first nip crime in the bud. But where there has been a breach, they must have the capacity to act swiftly. And if the Enugu experience is anything to go by, that essentially is what they did that enabled them to drive down violent crime by over 90 per cent.
He also called for a constitutional provision that guarantees state police while preserving the details for an Act of the National Assembly to allow for amendments in the future without going through the rigors of constitutional amendment. This, according to him, should not be verbose, but rather a provision that allows them to reform the system in future, if needed, when they have tried it.
Governor Mbah also stressed the need to focus on operational authority for state police rather than on watering down the powers of governors, who would be in office for a maximum of eight years only. By the way, there is this idea that governors are likely to abuse state police and that they should, therefore, do as much as they can to water down their powers.
Nobody is a governor forever. We are also going to one day leave that office and become regular citizens. We just want to be sure that there is enough operational authority given to the governors so that the person does not give someone a performance target without providing him or her with the control needed to achieve the required outcome.