Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has said that community policing through State Police is a cardinal program of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).
The Vice President, who was answering questions at a Townhall event where he interacted with US-based Nigerians in Houston, Texas in the US, said that such agenda on state police cannot be implemented until there is an amendment to the nation’s constitution.
He gave a scenario where a policeman from Bayelsa State is working in Borno State where he cannot even speak the language or understand the culture of the people he is policing, adding that such policing system can be counterproductive.
“The current situation where police activities are controlled at the federal level sure has some limitations. The federal government is currently working to introduce community policing that would be in line with the constitution.”
Vice President Osinbajo disclosed, while answering another question that Nigeria security agencies have so far arrested about 800 suspected violent herdsmen across the country, saying: “the President (Muhammadu Buhari) has given firm instructions to the security agencies to arrest not only herdsmen who are attacking communities anywhere in the country but anyone of them or anyone at all in possession of firearms.
“There are about 800 of suspected violent herdsmen in the country that are currently in custody.” The Vice President, who decried the slow pace of the criminal justice system that is affecting the prompt trial of such suspects, said that the issue of killings by such violent herdsmen has been a perennial one, especially as grazing lands continue to disappear over the years and the cattle feed on people’s crops on the farmlands.
He therefore kicked against the tendency by the people interpreting the herdsmen issue as a religious one, asking Nigerians to refuse to be drawn to such divisive narratives and tendencies.
He emphasized that there has always been a conflict between herdsmen and communities across the country and that people should disabuse the notion that the problem has just started because of President Buhari, who happens to be a Fulani.
The Townhall event, according to the senior special adviser to the Vice President on media and publicity, Laolu Akande, was shown live at the event and via the Internet.
He said that Professor Osinbajo fielded about thirty questions at a well-attended town hall event which was moderated by popular columnist, Rudolf Okonkwo and Professor Nimi Wariboko of Boston University. [myad]
