The Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Prince Lateef Fagbemi, SAN, has said the Federal Government requires minimum national policing standards to guarantee equal protection for all Nigerians, regardless of their state of residence.
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Fagbemi made the clarification on Monday at the State House during a media briefing by the Presidential Working Group on the National Policing Bill, chaired by the Chief of Staff to the President, Femi Gbajabiamila.
The AGF said the proposed state policing framework must be guided by an irreducible national minimum standard to ensure effective operation, prevent abuse and protect citizens from political persecution or oppression.
“The main thrust of this bill is to ensure security of lives and property, and it is also important that we do not make state policing a weapon of political persecution or oppression,” he said.
“There must be standards. There must be the minimum threshold to guarantee the continued existence and operation of society.”
Fagbemi explained that once state police becomes operational, the standards to be adopted must conform with globally recognised policing practices, particularly in relation to welfare, operations, accountability and protection of citizens’ rights.
He said officers moving from federal policing to state policing must not be placed at a disadvantage in terms of benefits and safeguards.
“If you are onboarding from the federal to the state police, it is important that the same benefit you derive must not be any less. The only difference will be that one is by the federal and the other by the state. If you leave the door open, then all sorts of situations will come in, and this will not be good enough for society,” he said.
The Minister also disclosed that where a state is not ready to establish its own Police Service Commission, the Nigeria Police Force will continue to provide policing in that state.
“Law abhors a vacuum, so the federal presence will continue to dominate in that area,” Fagbemi stated.
Also speaking, Ogun State Governor and representative of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum on the Presidential Working Group, Dapo Abiodun, said the assignment of the group is to produce the detailed implementation framework that will guide the operation of state policing.
Abiodun noted that while the constitutional amendment process had generated widespread support and public expectation, the National Policing Bill would provide the operational details required for implementation by states.
“What we’ve seen and witnessed is the amendment of the Constitution, and we’ve seen a groundswell of support by the entirety of Nigerians with a very high level of expectation that once the amendment was completed by the National Assembly, the next thing is for states to begin to implement their various state policing systems,” he said.
“The truth is that what this working group is working on is what would allow for the details of that implementation, which will be reflected in the bill.”
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