KOWA presidential hopeful calls for police accountability

A presidential aspirant on the platform of KOWA Party, Sina Fagbenro-Byron, has accused the police of lawlessness and lack of accountability.

The legal practitioner particularly alleged that the Special Anti Robbery Squad (SARS) arm of the police operates with impunity, which requires its urgent restructure.

Fagbenro made the call at the yearly Afang Summit, organised by an investment banker and founder of Katunga Media, Joseph Edgar.

According to him, “The accountability structure in the police are very weak, policemen are being issued bullet without asking them to account for the usage. In most police stations, there are no proper or detail record of activities and this could be blamed principally on the fact that the organisation is over centralised, which made it opened to misuse, abuse, corruption and impunity. It is therefore necessary to decentralise the agency.”

He added that restructuring must also happen in the security architecture of the nation to bring it closer to the people.

“The police are not unfamiliar with things like community policing, so I do not believe that anyone who is below the rank of a sergeant should be posted outside his local government where people know him and where he has a record and where he is accountable to the people.

The KOWA presidential hopeful said, “Community policing is a derivative of the state police. I’m in support of any policing that would bring security closer to the people. I believe the state should have its police; there should be a state police law or a state constitution that provides for the accountability of its security outfit.

Speaking on his agenda if elected president next year, Fagbenro said, “I am a different person, I am going to be more accountable and responsive. There are certain things we won’t tolerate; we won’t tolerate hunger and we won’t tolerate illiteracy and of course our major fight would be against poverty.

“Nigeria problem is multi-dimensional but two major things; inability to manage diversity and inability to manage our population.”
We have three of us vying for the presidential slot in KOWA; professor Remi Sonaiya, Ayo Lijadu, our primary is on the second week of September.