Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has said in order to end the growing spate of insecurity in Nigeria, creation of State Police is now better option than community policing.
Obasanjo stressed that state police should be given a priority above community policing to curb the wave of insecurity ravaging the country.
This was disclosed in a statement by the Special Assistant to Obasanjo on Media, Kehinde Akinyemi on Thursday.
According to the statement, the former president made this ascertaion when the leadership of the National Association of Ex-Local Government Chairmen in Nigeria paid him a courtesy visit in Abeokuta on Wednesday.
He said, “Our situation in Nigeria concerns everyone, particularly, the case of terrorism. The case has gotten over the issue of community police. It is now state police. It is from that state police that we can now be talking about community police.
“I prepared during the popular Murtala/Obasanjo administration, because I believe that there is need to enable that tier of government to work truly as a local governmen. They have their own Executive, Judiciary and Legislature.
“They were working and they were very visible, building and managing roads, looking into education, health, local administration, agriculture, but they were all gone.”