FIRST civilian governor of Edo State, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, has criticised the Senate’s opposition to creation of state police and the granting of autonomy to local governments, saying the actions were antithetical to a federal system that the country says it is practicing.

He, however, agreed with a political scientist from the University of Benin, Neville Obakhedo, that a six-year single term for President and Governors could help stabilise the quest for power and rotational agitation by various ethnic groups in the country.

“One single tenure for Presidents and Governors, I think it is okay; it reduces the frequency of elections; it increases the frequency of rotation, though we don’t call it rotation but I mean we will just be putting our heads in the sand if we say we don’t know that’s really what is happening,”
he said.

Oyegun continued: “What I opposed very strongly is local government autonomy. I am just disgusted about that.

“In a federation, it is only the states that are federating units and it is just like it takes the federal to create the state. Let them leave the states to also determine the system of local government they want to run.”

Oyegun added: “We still haven’t understood the basics of federalism; they (Senate Committee) also rejected state police. I find those things very astonishing.

“Quite frankly, it is incomprehensible; we have to decide whether we want to run a federation, whether we don’t.”

He said that state police has become almost mandatory; “it has become a necessity for proper security.”

“No matter how much organisation of 300,000 to 400,000 people to police the people, there is no way in our circumstances that we can run them effectively,” he said.

“The Army is even different because it is very tightly structured but the police are mere civilians and a lot more free and you can have effective police.

“Let us allow states to intervene; let us allow them elbow room to use their own methods to control security in their various states because they are the ones that have local knowledge and I don’t think there is even any local government that will want its local government to become known as the focus of criminals.

“So, when there is competition, they will be borrowing ideas from each other; they will be strenuously trying to keep their areas free of bandits and criminals, and the country will be much better for it.”

Oyegun said he could understand the fears of possible mis-use of police, “but there is federal mis-use of police; it does exist.”

“The Amaechi example is still there: when they suddenly removed all their security details; whose decision was that?”

“So, those two issues — local government and state police — I still feel very strongly about them. I think we are still on the wrong track and I am not sure they have even removed the local government from the Constitution the way it is.

“Thus, the basic fundamental issue of federalism has not been addressed; we still have very serious problems ahead of us.”

However, Oyegun said only a national conference could help solve the anomalies, “because what they are doing now is just superficial and they think they can get away with it.”

“What we need is not only to make this nation survive, but also to thrive,” he said.

But Obakhedo believes that the local government autonomy could be acceptable even though it negates the general principles of federalism and could be situated as homegrown.

“If we say we are operating a federal system of government, what we have here in Nigeria is that local government is seen as a tier of government, which is a variant,” he said.

“It is like a homegrown federal system where powers are no longer divided between the central and federating units alone, but between the federal, state and local governments. In that wise, a homegrown democracy, and one can support that.”

On state police, he said: “It is not that it is wrong for us to have state police, but the Nigerian state is not currently ripe for state policing like what we have in other areas where the states have their own courts up to the Supreme Court.

“But for now, the states are not ripe. If you see what is happening, they want to conduct local government, the sitting government will like to make sure that all elective positions for contest are won by the ruling political party by hook or crook across the length and breadth of the country.

“So, if you say state police, that means that those in the opposition are likely to be victims of state terrorism through the state police.”