Olu Falae faulted the country’s policing system and believes the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) has been unable to secure the nation.
The former Minister of Finance, Budget, and National Planning spoke as a guest on Channels Television’s Politics Today.
In his proposal for restructuring, Falae emphasised the need for a new constitution that grants each state or region the authority to formulate its constitution, deriving power from the federal constitution.
“We must have a new constitution that will allow every state or region to have its constitution and that constitution will derive all its power from the federal constitution,” the elder statesman said on Thursday.
“And it has become very clear now that the Nigerian police force has been unable to give Nigeria a secure environment. So, we must go back to a situation where every state or region must have its police force.”
The monarch highlighted the historical context, recalling a time when each state had its police force, contributing to the overall security of the nation.
“Every state for example, as we had in the past, will have its police force. When I was a little boy in this country, I knew three police forces; the younger generation knows only one,” he said.
“I believe when the civil war came, its members were quickly retrained and absorbed into the army and nobody remembered to return them to what they used to do before the war.”
Reflecting on the past, Falae pointed out that during Obafemi Awolowo’s tenure as premier in the west, there were distinct regional police forces in the west, east, and north, alongside native authority police in individual towns.
“When Obafemi Awolowo was premier in the west, we had a western Nigerian police force and then every town in the west, east, and north had its own native authority police. So, there were three police forces in Nigeria, to maintain peace.”
Falae underscored the success of this multi-faceted approach in maintaining peace and security, contrasting it with the current centralised system.
Despite opposition to the calls for restructuring of the country, the former minister said that the objective is to revert to the constitutional and political arrangements that were effective at the country’s independence.
He maintained that these arrangements were instrumental in fostering prosperity, competitive development, peace, security, and stability.
