By Ayobami, Abeokuta
A traditional ruler in Ogun State, the Eselu of Iselu Kingdom in Yewa North area of the state, Oba Akintunde Akinyemi, has urged Nigerians and the leaders to work towards nurturing the country’s democracy to maturity and genuineness before the clamour for the establishment of state police.
Oba Akinyemi said Nigeria is in dire need of genuine democracy with strong institutions to guarantee good governance and accountability to the people and not the state police being clamored for today by Nigerians.
The monarch who made this known in his remarks in Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital on Saturday, during his birthday ceremony hosted by over 146 traditional rulers across the state, also urged President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to give a a thought to adequate financing and insurance cover for existing police before decentralizing the policing system.
“I agree that Nigeria is not ripe for state police because when you see it in the US, you will know that policing has to do with transparency, equity, accountability and zero corruption but in Nigeria today if you are an APC and the governor is PDP, police will act to the instruction of the governor and will be victimizing those in the opposition party.
“I think we still need to practice democracy more even before we talk about state police. Let us talk about stable electricity because this is a computer age, nobody goes around and starts stopping vehicles to detect criminals.
“In order word, the president should look into giving adequate financing and insurance to the existing police before decentralizing it to the state,” he said.
The Eselu also appealed to the President to engage those agitating for the creation of Yoruba nation in a dialogue to understand their thought patterns and the ways they look at the Nigerian project in order to better steer them away from further misdirected steps.
“On the Yoruba nation agitators, I want the president to adopt the rule of engagement in handling the matter, we don’t have to use machine guns, these people are our people, the President should call all of them together, we work in modalities, we will tell them our manifestos and they will understand that president Tinubu means good for the country and south west in particular,” the monarch said.
