Amid persistent insecurity in Nigeria, the Serving Overseer of the Citadel Global Community Church, Pastor Tunde Bakare, has called for the immediate decentralisation of the country’s policing system and the creation of Zonal Security Councils to address rising violence and criminality.
Bakare, a former presidential aspirant on the platform of the All Progressives Congress, made the call during his state of the nation address in Lagos on Sunday, warning that Nigeria’s centralised security architecture was failing to protect citizens.
Citing recent mass killings in Plateau and Benue states where over 150 persons were murdered in separate attacks, Bakare insisted that the time had come to restructure the nation’s security strategy to reflect a multilevel policing system.
“We must then reinstate national security federalism by activating constitutional procedures for multilevel policing, including local, state, and zonal policing systems,” he said.
He proposed the establishment of Zonal Security Councils, chaired on a rotational basis by governors from the zones, and composed of both state and local police formations within those areas.
The councils, according to him, should be managed by nonpartisan security professionals and be adequately represented at the National Security Council.
“These steps would be further boosted by adequately retooling our security infrastructure to meet the complex demands and by remodelling our security infrastructure to end interagency rivalry,” Bakare added.
He stressed that rebuilding the trust of Nigerians in security agencies would require an overhaul of the existing security culture, advocating a shift in organisational conduct across law enforcement agencies.
Bakare further emphasised the importance of international cooperation, calling for a “two-tier foreign policy thrust”—the Trans-Saharan and the Trans-Atlantic initiatives—to enhance Nigeria’s capabilities in combating terrorism, banditry, and insurgency.
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