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The Governor of Anambra State, Prof. Charles Soludo, and his Imo State counterpart, Hope Uzordinma have clashed on the issue of having state police in Nigeria even as they were in agreement that the dysfunctional nature of the national security architecture.
Both were speakers at the session on Traditional and Non-Traditional Security Intervention, Early Conflict Identification, Prevention, Management, and Resolution on day two of the 2023 induction for re-elected and elected governors with the theme; ‘Governing for Impact (Building Sub-national Governance)‘ organised by the Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF) at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
While Soludo was of the opinion that even though the governors bear the responsibility of funding security agencies in their domain, they have no control over their operations, referring to state executives as generals without troops, welcoming the decision by the President-elect, Bola Tinubu to support state police.
Uzodimma, on his part said, considering the current economic realities, some states would not be able to fully fund their security architecture, calling instead for cooperation between the federal and subnational authorities, saying governors must be on the same page with the commander-in-chief.
Read Also: Soludo Moves To Pay School Fees Of 2,300 Students
Soludo, who lamented the disproportionate burden placed on state governments while lacking the necessary resources to combat the rising insecurity, stressed the need for local authorities to address rising insecurity in the country.
The Anambra governor said security issues were localised and that every locality has its own peculiarities.
‘The most fundamental issue, I think for those of us who are governors, and the governors-elect, a major concern that we need to get onto is the national security architecture and the moderator aptly pointed that out, places much of the kinetic architecture almost exclusively on the shoulders of the Federal Government, and whereas the states are called upon as chief security officers, but you aptly call us generals without troops, and therefore, state governors have to…I mean, what we’ll be discussing from the point of view of these places are coping mechanisms.’
Soludo asked: ‘How do we cope, how do cope to survive in a dysfunctional system because the architecture is dysfunctional? And it is such an architecture that the problems we face are very local, requiring our local actions, but the instrument is out there. The other thing is funding in the whole architecture, the Federal Government, which has a near monopoly of these agencies, cannot fund them. And then they have to foist on the states again, to be the ones to provide the funding but which is also not very accountable system.”
On his administration’s intervention in the state, he said: “I’m just a one-year-old baby on the job. Before I assumed office, it was so clear to me about the nature of the dysfunctionality, but how we must cope to survive.”
Uzodimma, while supporting Soludo’s submission, however, advised that on matter of security, governors should be on the same page with the president because he is the Commander-in-Chief.
“I want to agree with the governor of Anambra State, Professor Soludo. I really want to add that security as it has to do with state governments and Federal Governments should be defined very properly. First of all, our country, the Republic of Nigeria, is made up of 36 states. There’s no part of this country that does not belong to one state or the other inclusive of FCT and the Commander-in-Chief, who is the head of all the security agencies, Mr. President, is responsible for the provision and management of security in the country.”
He called for the reorientation of citizens to know that they share in the successes or failure of the Federal Government security architecture.
