Federalism is the answer, after all – Part 32 Opinion The Guardian Nigeria News Nigeria and World News – Guardian

Widespread banditry and other criminalities terrorising our corporate existence, right in the face of a helpless central police system would, again, validate our resolve that true federalism is the answer to questions of insecurity among other related challenges at the moment.

Before our very eyes, criminal gangs have gone brazen across states, eroding all public confidence in the Federal Government-controlled police, especially. State governors, who are the chief security officers to whom the people bequeath their trusts, deserve the latitude of state-owned police to ward off threats at this crucial time. It is gratifying to note that all of the governors have now built a credible consensus around state police, thanks to their helplessness at this time.

Clearly, the Nigerian Police Force, which is on the exclusive legislative list is an experiment that has outlived its usefulness. It is time to restructure it from the roots and give indigenous security systems, their self-funding and control a chance. There are so many writings on the wall now pointing at the expediency and urgency of restructuring of the failed federation. The Buhari administration should work with all the documents and groundswell of opinion on the decentralisation of police operations in the country. That is what will send a strong message to the people that indeed the Buhari administration would fulfill the promise of change his party used as a vehicle to ride him to power in 2015.

All told, the Nigerias leader should note that he has only few options to tackle the spate of insecurity in the country. Certainly, state policing in its organic form as in all federations the world over is the most urgent one he needs to tackle insecurity that has threatened to discredit his administration. The regular lamentation of the president on state of insecurity isnt a strategy. Our leader needs to address what most of the people are saying: that he should restructure this convoluted federation to reflect federalism we lost since 1966, lest we should be the last.

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Federalism is the answer, after all - Part 32 Opinion The Guardian Nigeria News Nigeria and World News - Guardian