Insecurity: YCE, Ohanaeze renew calls for restructuring

Mon, Apr 15, 2019 | By publisher


Security

THE Yoruba Council of Elders and the Ohanaeze Ndigbo have renewed calls for restructuring and creation of state police in order to effectively tackle the rising insecurity in the country.

The Secretary-General of the YCE, Dr Kunle Olajide, in an interview with The PUNCH said banditry, kidnapping and other criminal activities which were on the increase in many parts of the country were caused by poor economic situation in the country.

Olajide urged President Muhammadu Buhari to implement the National Conference report of  2014, saying there were some solutions in the report which could be used to address the insecurity problem in the nation.

He said, “The Buhari administration must urgently commence the implementation of the report of the El Rufai committee of the All Progressives Congress  on devolution of powers and also the  2014 National Conference reports.

“Halfhearted ad hoc measures to solve the problems arising from serious structural flaws cannot work.  The police must be decentralised as soon as possible.”

Also, the Publicity Secretary of the Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Uche Achi-Okpaga, in a separate interview with one of our correspondents, said restructuring was the solution to the numerous problems facing the nation.

He, however, said that the Buhari administration would not heed the call for restructuring because the President had shown disdain for advocates of restructuring.

“If you restructure Nigeria now, things will be better. Each region or state has at least one area where it can look into and generate revenue. When things are okay, the agitations in many areas will go down. Many will not mind who is the President and this insecurity will also reduce.”

The apex Igbo socio-cultural organisation decried  the resurgence of killings, banditry and kidnapping in some parts of the country after the general elections.

The organisation called for establishment of regional and state police to tackle the menace even as it attributed the wanton killings that have gone for years without any solution in sight to the failure of current leadership and partisanship of security agencies.

The Deputy National Publicity Secretary of the organisation, Chuks Ibegbu, told The PUNCH in an interview that the APC-led Federal Government had failed to provide Nigerians with the kind of leadership needed for peace and development.

Ibegbu said, “Insecurity in Nigeria today is rooted in the failure of leadership.

“The citizens are hungry and as the saying goes, a hungry man is an angry man; that is why you have plenty of bandits all over the country – people are frustrated and resort to gangsterism, banditry, ritual killing and kidnapping,” he said. – Punch

– Apr. 15, 2019 @ 8:49 GMT |

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