 The hopes for the creation of state police gets dust, as the Senate and House of Representatives refuse assent. And National Assembly tasks revenue-generating agencies to now generate 3 trillion narrow annually. This is plus politics, and I am Justin Acadone. Nigerian Senators have vowed to President Mohamed Buhari thereby rejecting the creation of state police. The Senate Constitutional Review Committee, while it rejected the state police, resolved that President and the fantasy state governors will constitute federal and state executive councils respectively within 60 days after being sworn in. Earlier, the House of Representatives had rejected a bill that was seeking the creation of state police. In 2021, many political stakeholders had advocated the restructuring of the police and system in order to enhance the fight against terrorism. Joining us to discuss this is Colonel Hassan-Stun Lebel, retired military officer and a security analyst. Good evening to you, Colonel. Many thanks for joining us on plus politics. Thanks so much. Thank you for having me once again. All right. We're looking at the issue of state policing, whether to be or not to be, from what we have and report we are saying so far. The Senate and the House of Representatives actually bowed to President Mohamed Buhari and they are saying that it is not to be. But let's look at this culturally, you know, state policing. Are you in favor of state policing? Do you think it is, you know, the panacea to all of the challenges be deftly in the country security-wise, really? Thank you very much. I must say this on a very, very serious, frankly speaking. I am for state policing. I am for, I definitely see the need for us to begin to see how we can decentralize the state policing structure in Nigeria to allow for sub-nationals to be able to maintain their own police structure and more so to compliment the high deficit who currently suffer at the federal level when it comes to policing. When you say the deficit will suffer at the federal level, can you be more explanatory? How do you mean? These statistics are just there and they speak for themselves. If you look at the UN prescription for the ratio of a policeman to how many citizens they are expected to police, we fall very far, far short of that, okay? I think the UN prescription is about, say, nearly 400 men or so. We fall far short of that. And besides, when you look at our population selloffs, what is the size of our police? The size of our police, I'm afraid, should be far below 300 or below 400 in terms of manpower. And when you look at the crime rate in Nigeria, if you look at the level of people at Haiti, we experience within our society, I think we should do some self-critique here. You know, we are talking now like a family. The fact is that we need more policemen. We need more policemen, more so, I would say, to do away with something I personally see as a big slap on us and that is carrying out police to carry out policy. The more we allow soldiers to carry out policies, definitely we shall have issues because that was in their train. For instance, the training of a soldier is to shoot a kill. Where the training of a policeman is to shoot to men for prosecution. The soldier has got no business with prosecuting the enemy. That is his training. He shoots you and you move on, or move on, he is going to work and this is the enemy. That is the mentality in him. So to carry such a man to the street and say, look, shooting, when you hear shooting, you aim at the help, because the essence of your shooting is to kill. If you shoot two or three rounds and you don't bring down your enemy, it's an offense in the military. So you bring such a man and tell him to maybe, he begins to wonder, oh God, I don't know what I do now. Yesterday I said, Kim, you say me, I'm trying to be very realistic, can we just be very, very reasonable and understand the peculiarities of our situation and allow sub-nationals to recruit? All right. I'm still talking about sub-nationals recruiting police to manage the affairs of security state-wise. What are some of the issues, really, because some people who are against state policing, they have talked about the concept of the state police in itself being subjected to abuse by state governors. Do you agree with that particular postulation? My brother, I used to belong to that camp. I was one of those who, way back, was opposed completely to anything state police, police. Why? I said our politicians are very responsible and they will not be able to fail the level of maturity we expect to be visited in the Mali. Yes, has that concept changed? No. But shall we, because of that, refuse to move forward as a nation? We must move forward. All right. Let's move forward. Confront, excuse me, confront the issues, confront the problems and say I will deal with it. Thank you. All right. Glad that you have actually mentioned about testing the waters, get into it, and over time, confirm if there are issues and if there are issues, really, they can be dealt with. But the other point of discussion that actually have come out on this particular topic of state policing, another is that of adequate funding. If you were to say right now, would you really say that the federal government is actually doing a good job when it comes to funding the activities and operations of the Niger police force? You make me laugh when you ask somebody like me such a question because I have been too involved, especially at the subnational level, all right? Working with the police while I was in service, okay, especially in Lagos State where I was in charge of OP Mesa, I was actually the first subnational commander of OP Mesa. It all originated when I was there. So the point I'm trying to make here is that how much of funding, let's be frank, is the federal government pumping into the police force at the various states? Most states are taking over the funding of the police. Besides paying off salaries by the federal government, what else? If I use Lagos State as an example, God bless the states, I must say. They don't have fantastic leaders. I don't know how they treat, all right? The initiative that came up here through the Lagos State police force and so on has made the police force in Lagos something else, okay? They've been able to come up with the IRS arrangement and all sorts of things with the state government mobilizing the entire business community within the states and fantastic huge sums have been generated, you know, it's been generated and going into the police. So how can the federal government, they're not really spending much, I must say. Maybe much is being voted but I must say I don't see much being spent. I was thinking by now some serious reforms would have been going on in the police force especially after the NSAR's beta experience where I was thinking the federal government would have learned these lessons and begin to see how we go straight into police reforms. It's a great deal of reform required in the national security sector, especially with the police. I don't see any serious reforms going on where I would have said maybe a lot of money is going on into training, these, that and so on. In nearly every state where today we have the military complementing the effort of the police and graph, we know how much state governments are spending and that's why some of the governors are saying allow us to have our own police force and then this money, this entire money we are pumping in at the various state level who go into our own police. I think that would have just been proper. That would have been proper. We can see how much they are really spending. Let's give them some chance. The federal government could lay out the guidelines but not say give them a free hand. Our politicians are not as mature as that. They are like children, they are like late to feed with children because let's not go into something else. The point is this, look, we are right for subnational state police. I still want us to talk about him funding in as much as you have said that the federal government have actually failed in their capacity to really fund the Niger police force. If it were left to the hands of state governors, do you think it would be better? For instance, you mentioned that Lagos is doing arguably very well when it comes to police and the state. What would the state security trust fund that is on? For Lagos and just a few states, would you really think that other states would adequately fund the police and system when most of the times complain of funds and they are always running in a cup in the hand to the federal government at the end of the month in the four federal allocation? Yes, because most of the governors don't have their thinking caps on. They lack what it takes to enhance on their IGFs. I have always said it, a lot of these states should always peep into us to what Lagos is doing. We draw back to your state and replicate it. If I were any of them by now, whoever is inside of Lagos would be one of my friends. I would be copying notes from him like two words and go back to my state and approve my state so that there will be some level of governance. So the point I'm making here in therapy is that they can generate some little amount of money that can allow them to take off. You take off at a small level. You don't just take off as if you have everything at your disposal. You take off at a little level. Your first recruitment might not go beyond more than, say, 500 men. And you use that as a guinea pig. You kid them, you train them, and so on. And then, of course, it would be a great deal of oversight function from the federal police or from the federal government. There must be a great deal of oversight. And, of course, that would just come in naturally anyway because I hope you know that even when we have states believe, of course, there will be police and the federal police. This initial state, there will be a great deal of guidance coming in from the federal police. A great deal. After about three, four, five years, we'll be withdrawing completely. We'll be withdrawing. The federal will be withdrawing to allow them to finally become adequate for funding. They just have to bite what they can chew. When you bite more than what you can chew or swallow, that is your problem. Go at your pace. Simple. All right. I certainly need us to talk more about an organization and a bit of control, you know, because a lot of proponents for state police have said over time that if it were in existence, the issue of, you know, the killings we have on the federal highways, inter-communal classes and all that would be brought to a considerably low point because the community members would actually understand themselves and they would be able to know how to george and that the policemen would be from the region. But then again, how do we begin to manage, you know, the issue of community policing? Because for some states they have network security watches and right now most regions are calling for regional, you know, security network. What with the Amotecun? And of course, Ibubago in the South is how do we begin to manage all of this while we still look for getting a way to making the state's policing system work? Since the local structure, the Amotecun to the same political master, that is to say Amotecun, the state police will all be answerable to the state governor who of course at that time is at the helm of a desk, okay, security-wise and so on. There will be a great deal of synergy between both. I don't see any form of problems except where people deliberately want to come up with problems. There will be guidelines, okay, the operational guidelines or job descriptions will be well spread out, okay. You mentioned it, milestones will be placed and so on. So at every point, at every point there will be some level of guidance, all right. For instance, I don't know if Amotecun has a right of power for execution and so on, otherwise they would have to transfer to the state police whatever they arrest, they will be that synergy between there and so on. Why these people now have authority for prosecution and so on and the rest. So with such synergy, with such operational guidelines and so on, I don't see any hitch. All we need to do is to measure a great deal of speed work is done, it's well carried out, spread out before takeoff. There must be a high level of speed work going on before takeoff. Okay, so would you actually propose the same coordination for community policing like you have suggested for regional policing? Thank you. Community policing is one area where I really feel I have so much of interest, okay, because with the state police coming in, it makes it easier for community policing to take off. All right, and we all know that community policing are right about community policing, they are right at the grassroots, all right. They are policemen who are posted to particular communities or locations and so on and they are expected to be there as long as possible so that they get to understand the community, the community gets to know them, the community continues to cooperate, synergize with them and does a great deal of their activities and so on, the communities buy into their activities. The communities take ownership of their activities and their actions and so on, so that information flows so easily from the community to the community police and so from the community police to the state police. You will see that information flow that would eventually get crystallized into intelligence flows far, far faster and easier and simpler. There is nothing as fantastic as community policing and we need it, we need it seriously but with that state policing, it becomes more difficult because when we are talking of community policing in most cases, you are referring to individuals who to a greater extent are indigenous to the plain. As a policeman within that situation and so on, people know you, you know them. People who saw when you were born are there. You just, when I walked up to the streets where I was born, way back in Kaduna, you see find very others. People were there when they received you and so on. You yourself will check yourself. You will not be the type who will be collecting 29 hours of shit where you know uncle this is seeing me, uncle Alex is seeing me, but that to be is seeing me. You will conduct yourself and do your job. That self-discipline will come in and it will enhance generally the level of discipline and the entire police structure. All right, I'm calling it. Now that you've mentioned that community policing actually is very workable if we have state policing. So right now, lawmakers have rejected state policing. What do we do going forward? How do we make the status quo better? How do we make the Nigerian police force better in as much as we still have to wait for us to get the state policing right? What do we do going forward? We just can keep on folding our arms and watch Nigerians die by the day with all of that insurgencies and of course the banditry that we hear in the Northwest and the North East. What do we do going forward? In a circumstance where we have representatives or senators who don't listen to what their people want to say to what the presidency wants. One of the first things you do is to make sure that come 2023, most of these guys are going to go back to Mitch. All right, I think that's as much as we can take from Colonel Hassan's level. We seem to be having some disconnect. We have been looking at the state policing concept in Nigeria. It's been rejected by the lawmakers and in as much as our guests have said that it is the way forward and we have to be exploring other models including that of community policing we just have to keep on pressing and keep on pushing to ensure that one day the voice of the people is heard in this country of ours. Well, thanks for staying with us. We'll take a short break now and when we return, revenue-generating agencies being taxed would remedy $3 trillion annually. Let's see if they can actually achieve that more when we return in a moment. Don't go away.