#SecuritySummit: “We cannot police a country the size of Nigeria centrally from Abuja” – Osinbajo

Professor Yemi Osinbajo has said that Nigeria cannot be policed centrally from Abuja.

The vice president made this statement at the Senate Security Summit on Thursday, February 8th 2018.

The summit which aims at reviewing the current security infrastructure in Nigeria, will be held over the course of 2 days.

According to Vanguard, Osinbajo said:

For a country our size, to meet the one policeman to 400 persons according to the UN prescribed ratio, we would require almost triple the number of our current police force. Far more funding for the military and security agencies is required.

We cannot police a country the size of Nigeria centrally from Abuja. State police and other community policing methods are clearly the way to go.

The nature of our security challenges are complex. Securing Nigeria’s over 900sq/km and its 180 million people requires far more men and materials than we have at the moment. It also requires a continual re-engineering of our security architecture and strategies. This has to be a dynamic process.

Let me reiterate that on no account will any land be seized or forcefully taken to create ranches or grazing areas. All insinuations to that effect should be disregarded.

Instead, it is in our view that states that are willing should cooperate even with willing investors into commercially viable government supported ranches or livestock production centers for commercial use.

Photo Credit: @NGRSenate