Festus Adedayo

Thumbs up for Sani: Terrorists must die!, by Festus Adedayo 

by · The Eagle Online

Kudos have rightly gone the way of President Bola Tinubu recently. It is gladsome that a presidency which, for 37 months of its shelf life, was notorious for its snail-speed throttle on the state police idea, is suddenly putting on track spikes. The way Tinubu is sprinting on the state police bill today, he may well be garlanded, alongside Noah Lyles and Sabastian Sawe — the American world’s fastest short-distance sprinter, and the Kenyan globe’s fastest long-distance runner, respectively. Senate President Godswill Akpabio has also suddenly found a similar rhythm. The sprint with which he and his coterie in the parliament once approved humongous presidential loans is finally finding a home in the state police matter.

Western Region Premier, Chief S. L. Akintola, popularised a wise saying from which both Tinubu and Akpabio might borrow a leaf. 

Seeking to be independent of the Action Group party that brought him into office, Akintola threw a proverb to his rescue: “when a benefactor gives a beneficiary the gift of a ram, the benefactor must abstain from holding on to the ram’s leash.

While the drafters of the state police bill deserve kudos for significantly taking policing from the federal government and placing it in the grip of state governors, the several safeguards aimed at inhibiting governors from taking imperial possession of it are further gladdening. One such safeguard is that, while governors can appoint state police commissioners, the bill also requires the National Police Council endorsement, legislative confirmation, and independent oversight as mechanisms to prevent abuse.

However, the metaphorical ram’s leash remains in the provision which empowers Abuja to provide grants and financial assistance to state police services. It is an avenue for quid pro quo — what in Nigerian parlance is called “rob-my-back-I-rob-yours.” This tactic is said to be in flagrant use by Abuja today, as it allegedly pays billions in so-called ecological funds to governors defecting to the ruling APC.

The most pressing national concern regarding state police was addressed by Kaduna State Governor Uba Sani on a Channels Television programme last week. Anyone who deliberately takes lives and destroys communities is not deserving of leniency, he stated. “I don’t believe they deserve a second chance because, in my own opinion, they are terrorists. Bandits are terrorists. When you call them terrorists, it means they are people who have killed innocent citizens. Certainly, they have no right to live; they must be eliminated,” Sani said.

Also Read

Patented by the Muhammadu Buhari government, the Tinubu administration has seemingly plagiarised the amnesty-for-terrorists policy the way a chameleon plagiarises colour. It is so sheepishly lapped up today as we witness villagers pointing at killers of their bread winners driving government-given cars and garlanded with huge cash. It is so bad that it makes men of conscience want to puke. It is widely alleged that the Villa even pays ransom to terrorists, with rumors suggesting that a department exists within top security top brass office for negotiating with them using billions of our national patrimony. Successive Katsina governors have been seen gifting terrorists huge sums of state money, funding their pilgrimages, with one of the governors even publicly taking photographs with them. How will these states, in the new kingdom of state policing, fight crimes without compromising?

The only silver lining is that when state policing fully takes off, complaints of complacency will finally be placed squarely at the doorsteps of state governors, and no longer the Villa.

Follow The Eagle Online Channel on WhatsApp

[wpadcenter_ad id='745970' align='none']