Taraba State Governor, Darius Ishaku has reiterated his call for the establishment of state police in Nigeria.
He spoke on Sunday during a meeting with a presidential aspirant of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, former President Atiku Abubakar, at the Government House in Jalingo, the state capital.
Speaking on the herdsmen-farmers’ crisis, the governor was confident that creating state police would go a long way to tackle repeated killings and bring criminality to the barest minimum.
“We must keep the country as one and in peace and, therefore, as of a necessity, some structural defence must have to be amended,” he said.
“I’m sitting here as a governor, but I cannot control one troop. In America where we copied the constitution, there is state police, there is local government police, and there is federal police.
“What is beyond the local government police, the state police steps in and what is beyond the state police, the federal police steps in. What is beyond the federal police, then that is when the attention of Mr President is called in,” he added,
He described the inability of the state to deal with the challenge as very worrisome, stressing that the governors in states affected by the killings were rendered helpless.
“How will you be as they call you an Executive Governor, executive of what? We are handicap, we are toothless lame bulldog.
“I’m not saying the police haven’t tried; if they are given real equipment with training and backed up with funding, the police can solve any problem,” he said.
Ishaku further thanked the lawmakers in both chambers of the National Assembly for their effort towards the creation of state police.
He, however, urged them to hasten the process which he said would “give teeth to our sitting here” and “arm us to stop these senseless killings that are going on”.
The governor, who noted that the killings in Taraba occur frequently, said, “Most times I weep in my room alone.”
“Can you imagine a man with a family of 10 in the village who doesn’t even know what governance is about, what he does is to plant yam and corn to feed his family and then somebody comes with an AK47 and liquidate him out of this world.
“It touches some of us in our hearts and I think as a human being, even if your dog is killed for doing nothing you feel the pain let alone human beings,” he lamented.
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