6th February, 2019
Mrs Naomi Fanto, the Southern Plateau Senatorial Candidate of Action Democratic Party (ADP), has called for the introduction of state police and economic restructuring in the country.
Fanto made the call in Jos on Wednesday.
She said that every state in Nigeria was endowed and could survive independently.
“The only problem we have is the oil and gas. I pray that the oil dries up and then everyone will return to their various states to work and make use of what they have,” she explained.
She said that she supported restructuring as it would help to redefine the relevance of every state and help develop the country.
“The moment we devolved power from the centre, everybody will become sensible and then go back to their own states and build up their place or they will become backward,” she said.
Fanto said that Nigeria was too big and there would be war soon that could not be stopped without restructuring.
She said that the issue of state police should be welcomed as it would help to solve security problem within states.
“When we had Plateau indigenes in the police force in the state, we didn’t have all these strange things happening because they knew everywhere in the town and how to get thorough investigation carried out.
“What we have now is a situation where some policemen are afraid to go to some places in the state because of their religion.
“A policeman by virtue of training should be able to penetrate any region of the state to discharge his duties, but right now we have a situation where a Muslim policeman can only serve in a predominantly Muslim area and a Christian policeman is only comfortable in a Christian area.”
Fanto said that most of the skirmishes in the state would have been dealt with to a reasonable level if the Federal Government had subscribed to the state police.