A former Governor of Rivers, Sir Celestine Omehia, has opposed the call for creation of State Police, saying state governors have not demonstrated the competence
By Emmanuel Oloniruha
A former Governor of Rivers, Sir Celestine Omehia, has opposed the call for creation of State Police, saying state governors have not demonstrated the competence to handle such a responsibility.
Omehia stated this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Tuesday in Abuja, while speaking on his new book entitled “Restructuring Nigeria: The Way Forward.’’
The renowned legal luminary said he does not subscribe to state police, because it would be easily abused by the state governors who will use them to target political opponents especially during elections.
Omehia added that aside the fact that governors lack the competency to handle state Police, the approval would overburden them.
He said though countries such as America, Germany, Australia, United Kingdom and India are operating state police successfully because they work strictly on their constitutions that established them, obedience to 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 it already that many people who are governors don’t have open mind for the general good of the people, they have personal interest 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 is created, it becomes an easy and willing tool to be used for every election by the governors to attack political opponents,” he said.
Regarding electoral reform, Omehia proposed retaining of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), but insisted that its independence from the executive arm of government must be looked into.
He recommends that the national chairman of INEC should be elected through a heavily contested process, rather than being appointed by the executive, which would ensure his independence from all arms of government.
“In my book, I suggested that instead of appointment, there must be an election to bring in who becomes INEC national chairman.
“Then the other commissioners, since election will be affecting the states they must go to the province. There must be an election at the provincial level to bring in national commissioners of INEC,” he said.
He also suggested that INEC’s funding be provided for in the constitution to save the commission from relying on the executive.
“To make INEC truly independent, their funding, their finances will be contained and provided for in the constitution and must be released to them like the three arms of government.
“If they are to rely on the executive for funding, then you know the theory, he who pays the piper dictates the tone,” he said.
Omehia said that his proposals may look odd, but at the long run it would pay off for the country, while it would also be beneficiary to the people and the states.
He said that while independence of INEC would improve integrity of elections, devolution of power will give the sub-national governments more power.
“For instance, on fiscal federalism, I proposed a new revenue-sharing formula, where states will retain 50 per cent of their revenue, send the remaining 50 per cent to zonal provisional government which I proposed in the book to replace geo-political zone.
“Subsequently, the province will remit 50 per cent of the collected revenue to the federal government and retain 50 per cent.
“The remaining 50 per cent of revenue that the federal government receives would then be shared with 30 per cent for federal administration and the remaining 20 per cent to be redistributed among the states,” he said.
This according to Omehia will empower the state and the people who are closer to the states.
On what motivated him to write the book, Omehia said that the inspiration came from several demands for restructuring by stakeholders including traditional rulers, academia, journalists and others due to many defects in the governance and administration.
He also corrected the impression that restructuring was about state creation or taking Nigeria back to the regional governments system.
“To me, the issue of region has come and gone. We cannot take Nigeria back to regional system of government. States have been created and these states have made better impact on the people than the region,’’ he said.
Omehia added that state creation had also favoured minority groups who were complaining under the regional system of government.(NAN)(www.nannews.ng)