Ike Ekweremadu, former deputy senate president, says community policing is a “fraud” and total distraction.
Ekweremadu, who represents Enugu west senatorial district, said this when he featured on a Channels TV programme on Friday.
Mohammed Adamu, inspector-general of police (IGP), has pushed for community policing which he said would help address crime at the grassroots.
President Muhammadu Buhari also approved the measure in 2019.
Ekweremadu, however, said the strategy will not work in a federating unit with “so many diversities” like Nigeria.
He said Nigerians are living in denial, and that the security situation is “so bad and the bad news is that it is going to get worse because we are not dealing with it at all”.
“Nigeria lives as a federal state. We accepted before independence that is suitable for our circumstance is federalism. Since we accepted federalism, we need to look at others practising federalism,” he said.
“In those other places, the way they deal with security is to decentralise it. The idea of forming a federal system of government is that you have accepted that you have so many diversities.
“To respect those diversities, you have to come into a loose arrangement to do things in a way that is peculiar to the people.
“Community policing is a fraud, it is a total distraction. What they are telling us is that there is a problem between the community and the police itself and they need to address that lack of trust and confidence. That’s what community policing is all about.
“If you have a federal system, you have a complete architecture that can deal with situations in a complex manner.”
He said contrary to what most Nigerians think the police is planning through community policing, the police IG told the senate “they are going to get volunteers who will be giving police information, find out what their challenges are, why do they not trust the police, to build their confidence”.
“Unfortunately, the federal police we have now is not working. That’s why they (south-west) came together to say let us have a security outfit to deal with our problems,” Ekweremadu said.
“Amotekun is different from what the federal government is saying about community policing. They have personnel who are going to deal with issues unlike what the federal government is proposing.”