Atiku support South-west Governors, applaud Amotekun Initiative 

Could it be for the true interest of the south-west people or just another political stunt, a mean to rob the ruling party of the confident the masses place on them to provide adequate security in the country?

According to the former Vice-President, it is in carrying out this function that the state employs different layers of measures to ensure effective and efficient policing. The primary responsibility of government, at any level, is the protection of lives and property of the citizen, says PDP chieftain Alhaji Atiku Abubakar.

In a statement on Sunday, the presidential candidate of the PDP in the last election said that it is without doubt that in the past decade particularly, the current policing administration in the country had been stretched to its limits, adding that it is obvious that the reality of the nation’s domestic security upheaval will demand that the people recalibrate the police systems.

Atiku in explaining further noted that in the First Republic before things gravitated too much to the centre, policing was done federally with each native authority and region having some mechanisms to deal with little upsets that were the security concerns of those times.

He added that in present-day Nigeria, there is hardly any state of the federation that does not contend with some type of security challenges.

Atiku stressed that consequently, there is a need for the creation of additional policing structures in the country to address the rapidly growing challenges of insecurity and crime.

“The time is ripe to seriously confront the reality of insecurity in the country by addressing the urgency of introducing state police, zonal police and community policing to complement the efforts of the current federal police.

“It is obvious that current levels of insecurity in the country are giving rise to major initiatives such as Amotekun and the issue need not be controversial in the first place.

“The police are likely to be more effective if they constantly operate in the same local community or local government because such closeness might create a bond with the local people, thereby enabling community cooperation and participation that would engender proactive outcomes in crime prevention,” Atiku stated.