The Peoples Redemption Party (PRP) has rejected the ongoing constitutional amendment process seeking to establish state police.
The Senate and House of Representatives have passed the constitution alteration bill intended to transfer policing from the exclusive legislative list to the concurrent list.
The bill has the backing of President Bola Tinubu and state governors amid renewed incidents of insecurity across the country.
But in a statement issued on Thursday and signed by PRP National Chairman, Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, the party said it is “deeply concerned” over Tinubu’s plan to establish state police at a time when his administration’s “credibility and competence are at an unprecedented low level in our democratic history”.
The PRP said while Nigeria requires a comprehensive review of its security architecture to address growing insecurity and restore public confidence in law enforcement institutions, the current administration “lacks the moral assets and the trust of Nigerians to undertake a major shift in the policing structure of the country”.
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The party said the government has failed to manage the nation’s security structure and institutions effectively, adding that the plan to “engineer the emergence of state police is suspicious and it should be rejected”.
The opposition party said the “forthcoming election should be a threshold which should be crossed with credibility and popular acclaim before the nation decides on important issues such as state police structures”.
The party advised Tinubu’s administration to make “greater efforts” to improve security nationwide and end what it described as the “nightmare” of insecurity facing Nigerians, rather than pursuing constitutional amendments to create state police.
