Senator representing Ekiti Central, Michael Opeyemi Bamidele is the Leader of the Senate. He spoke with journalists in Kano, shortly after the Senate Committee on Constitution Review retreat in the ancient city. TAIWO AMODU brings the excerpts:
We understand that agitation for creation of State Police was one of the issues on the front burner as the National Assembly prepares for review of the 1999 Constitution. What is your stand?
It’s more about where Nigeria stands on this issue. There will be as many opinions as there are people. But the truth about it is, where does Nigeria stand? What is the state of the nation? These things should be done on mixed basis. What are the realities of today? Every community is asking for security. And if you must address the issue of insecurity, it stares us on the face. We did not start today, but it has further degenerated. It’s important that we have to appreciate the fact that security architecture must be in layers. And the issue of community policing is a global reality and the point was made yesterday. You cannot take an Opeyemi from Ekiti to go and police the nooks and crannies of Maiduguri instead of getting somebody from that community, who understands the language, understands the culture, understands the community very well, and is known also by the community, to police the people.
So, when we’re talking about state policing, it’s something that is consistent with global best practice, based on global realities and those who are still saying they don’t believe in this are playing the ostrich. And that’s why I’m saying it’s not really about where I stand, it is about where Nigeria stands.
Nigeria needs this as soon as yesterday. Nobody is saying, discard the federal police. The federal police will always be there. I see this hypocritical approach of claiming that we are modeling our democracy after certain democracies, advanced democracies around the world and we take what is convenient for us and what also should go with the practice of federalism because it’s probably not convenient for some principalities and powers, within the political circle. They want to run away from them, discard them.
One of them is the idea of state police. We cannot run away from it and I’m so surprised that in 2024, we are still debating whether we should have state police or not at a time that those we say we are modeling our democracy after, they have state police in addition to the federal police. They also have local government police. They call it county police. They have police at bus stations, at train stations, all manners of policing of the people in addition to deploying heavy technology. The world has gotten to this stage and now we are still debating whether we want to have state police or not. For me, what are the issues? One, all we need to do regarding state police is to create a legal framework. Once we have the legal framework, it will now be left for each of the 36 states and the FCT to determine when they want to start. We are not saying any state that isn’t ready for it to start.
We are not saying any state that cannot afford it to start. But let it be legal for any state that wants to have a state police to have it. So for us, it’s about the legal framework. No state can have it today, it doesn’t matter how much resources you have, because our law does not allow it. Our law recognises and allows only the federal police, any other thing outside of that would be illegal. So can we at least start from somewhere? Let us amend our constitution in a way that State policing is recognized and allowed.
And then step two will now be those states that can afford to commence immediately and do so and those who cannot at this point know that at any point that they are ready and able and willing to, the legal framework is already in place. So that’s one issue. So, we need to change the narrative of this debate, we need to take it from whether or not we want the State police or not. Some states want, some states don’t. But every state of Nigeria needs it.
The second issue to also canvass in this regard is also the fact that, you know, if you are talking about state policing, you are not talking about anything that people are not doing. Again, facing the reality, from one state of the federation to another, we see all manners of vigilante group, some states within geopolitical networking have even come up with different forms of security network, from Amotekun to Hisbah Police. I mean, it has been so for a while, a time there was we had the Egbesu Boys, we had all manners of security structures and some have even been hijacked, you know, for very negative purposes.
While some are still there, I mean, working with state governments and all that. So whether we like it or not, it is happening. But the danger in not formalizing this thing and providing a legal framework is that, you know, state governments and other individuals and institutions and commercial platforms might end up arming the wrong people that can use, you know, I mean, such arms and ammunition against the citizenry.
And it’s a very dangerous thing to do. So the more we run away from this reality, the more we play the ostrich, which seems to be a popular game, going on, the more we take the risk of arming the wrong people in our society and allowing all manners of uncontrolled, unprofessional security architecture, you know, to fester in our various state and it’s important that even the media, you know, as a part of a civil society, want to take a position on this issue.
Of course, the various media organisations are also owned by people with political and economic interests, and give it to them, we cannot run away from that. They also have sometimes their own geopolitical sentiments. But as a body and as a fourth estate of the realm, the media itself will have to retreat on this issue and take a position. Even a lot of states that said they didn’t believe in state police before, now have come to embrace it. But we may not wait until the time where there will be a 100% endorsement of it before we say, yes, it’s time to do it. There is a need for us to create a legal framework, which is the starting point and once the legal framework is created, the states that are ready can then commence.
Talking about the celebrated judgement on financial autonomy for local government, some have argued that governors play very significant role in the emergence of council chairmen. Give us the direction the Senate is looking.
Well, there is no doubt in the fact that the issue of local government autonomy is a major and cardinal aspect of democracy. It is said that democracy cannot have meaning, not just as a concept, but when it is founded on certain principles, including rule of law and independence of the judiciary and access to justice and then of course, the independence or the autonomy of our local governments cannot be taken away. The debate is raging as to whether or not local government could or should be considered as a third tier of government.
There is no doubt in the fact that what is in our constitution, what our constitution recognizes as a federating units are the government at the center, which we refer to as the federal government, as well as the state government. Those are the federating units. But remember, the same constitution now makes clear provision for how our local government will be administered and the constitution says local government shall be administered through laws made by state government. So, squarely, the constitution puts the administration of the local government under state government, rather than making them an entirely different third tier government.
But having said that, again, law is made for men and not men for law and the reason you have the Parliament is because laws, like the human being, will continue to grow. The same way you feel this time as a human being to shave your beard or cut your hair or do whatever you need to do, or even take a bath on a daily basis, it’s the same way we need to maintain our laws.
Again, that’s why there’s a Parliament as a distinct arm of government because the laws will always be subjected to changes. So, new laws will be made, existing laws will be amended, and that’s based on experiences. So, regardless of what is in our constitution, what is important is that certain realities have come to dawn on us. So, if we’re talking about local government autonomy, the way some of us have looked at it, in the Senate and in the national assembly, is that we need to complement what the Supreme Court has said. The Supreme Court didn’t say anything that is not in our constitution. The Supreme Court only gave it some further clarity and rising from that, it’s also important that as much as possible, we also ensure that the fear that governors will not allow local governments to function can also be addressed through further tinkering with our constitution. For instance, a lot of stakeholders are concerned that for as long as local governments elections are conducted through state independent Electoral commissions, it will continue to be a highway to nowhere, because they believe that whichever party produce the governor will own the local government leadership 100%, because the popular belief everywhere is that, you know, our governors and the ruling party of the state, will just sit down and write the results. So, you can tell which party will win. It’s as bad as that and some parties will even say they don’t want to participate because they think it’s a waste of time while some will participate just because they want to keep their structures out there not because they think they will win an election. It is that bad and that cannot be the intendment of those who, I mean, sponsored the bill and the passage of the law, you know, creating State Independent Electoral Commissions. So, if that isn’t what we want, it takes us to the next level of debate and deliberation. Do we give the power back to INEC, you know, or do we create another, you know, commission that will be in charge of local government elections, also as a federal commission? Well, for those who insist that we should go back to INEC, they will tell you it was because INEC was conducting it before, you know.
Yes, INEC was conducting it before but remember, that was during military dictatorship in this country and it was part of the centralised, unitary system of governance under the military and it wasn’t a democracy. So, that argument, you know, cannot really be pushed to a logical conclusion and the next question is whether or not INEC itself might be too overwhelmed to be able to optimally perform in that regard. And then the other level of the argument begins: create a totally new commission, you know, or a directorate under INEC by law that will just have the sole responsibility of organizing local government elections. Again, people are concerned as to what this also means to our democracy. If we say the state and the federal government are the federating units and our constitution has placed the responsibility of organizing local government in the hands of the state house of assembly. So, I believe this is calling for more of a political solution at this point than a legal intervention.
After a political understanding and consensus, it will be easier to come up with a legal framework on how to address this issue and that’s why I keep saying that the legal system itself is a creation of a political system. You know, I think it’s an issue that the political class itself will need to come together and discuss and come to an understanding, because every political party is at risk and our people, Nigerians, are the one losing in this regard. The fact that a particular party is in control of governance in a particular state today, does not mean that in another four years, that will be the same party. But if we can all patriotically come to a conclusion on the way forward regarding the manner of conduct of local government elections, where you can truly have a democratic decision, I think it will be much easier to come back to parliament and engage in some legislative action, trying to create a new framework.
So, it’s a matter which, like I said, is more weighty, for the sincere intervention of the political class rather than a matter to be debated on the floor because even if we pass it today, if the political class has not come to a consensus, we can be sure that we will fail to get two third endorsement of the state house of assembly. I can’t remember when last you had one political party controlling government at the center and also in control of two-thirds of the state houses of assembly because that is not the situation that we have now, it means there must be some consensus between the political class on this issue.
What is your take on the agitation for a return to a regional form of government as the Senate proceeds with its assignment on the review of the 1999 Constitution?
For me, going back to Regional form of governance, is for me something that goes beyond a bill, being sponsored, either as a private bill or an Executive Bill. It isn’t something that you sit down in a Committee hearing room and organize a public hearing to take a decision on. As a parliament, you can’t discard the entire Constitution and say Nigeria needs a new Constitution, this country can’t work. It is easy for people to make such argument. That’s not what we can sit down in the parliament and do, change the entire Constitution because that will require a political consensus and that will also require even the buy-in of the Nigerian people themselves. Why is it so difficult to amend even one section of the Constitution, not to even talk about discarding the entire Constitution itself? To amend a single proviso in the Constitution today, the National Assembly, both chambers will have to go through this entire process we are going through with both chambers accepting and many of you have been part of this process and after all these are done we still have to go to the public to organize public hearing. We just decided now that we are going to organize public hearing on geo- political zonal level. When we are also done with all of these at the zonal level, we come back here to vote. After voting, we still have to go through all the 36 states of the state assemblies and get two-thirds of them to endorse.
The reasons our forefathers and the writers of our Constitution did all of that is to make it “difficult”— not easy for a few people to just sit down, or one section of the country to just sit down and change the Constitution.
So, if you have to go through all of that to change one provision in the Constitution, how much more, we are talking about changing the entire form of governance that we are going to have.
Some decisions were taken under the military regime because there was no democratic process in place and when
you are in a democracy, especially a democracy that remains so nascent, almost 64 years after independence, you see that the need for political consensus cannot be overemphasized. So, for me, the question of whether or not to go back to regionalism for now, can only remain within the realm of debate, you know, and no legislative action should be encouraged in that regard, so that it doesn’t become an exercise of utility.
But, you know, the political stakeholders, and, you know, the civil society, as well as other stakeholders, you know, in the country, would have to still debate this and come to a conclusion.
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