A founding member of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Osita Okechukwu, has advised President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to urgently convene the Special Police Constabulary Unit (SPCU), rather than deploying 30,000 recruits into the existing police structure.

Proposing a more targeted approach to rising insecurity, the former Director General of the Voice of Nigeria (VON) said it would be more effective to channel the recruits into the SPCU, as outlined in Sections 105–109 of the Nigeria Police Act 2020.

According to him, “The immediate handgun is the urgent convocation of SPCU, recruited in line with the federal character principle to reflect local conditions, well-trained and equipped with a sophisticated arsenal to contain kidnappers, terrorists, and insurgents, because the recruits know their local terrain better.”

Okechukwu cautioned that the SPCU should be a shared responsibility of the federal, state, and local governments, with funding and recruitment handled jointly and drawn from indigenes of each state, particularly community vigilantes.

He added that the unit should operate with minimal federal constraints and be funded directly through the Federal Account Allocation Commission (FAAC), with contributions from all tiers of government.

Noting that governors across party lines have failed to establish state police, Okechukwu argued that it is “more altruistic” for the president to urgently activate the SPCU to address local security challenges that have forced widespread school closures nationwide. (The Nation)

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