Chief Onovo,
By: Daniel Kanu
Former presidential candidate of the National Conscience Party, Chief Martin Onovo, has criticised the renewed calls for state police, warning that such a move could worsen insecurity and deepen abuse of power across Nigeria.
Onovo, who was the 2015 presidential candidate of the NCP and currently heads Policy Positions at the Movement for Fundamental Change (MFC), made the remarks during an interview in which he assessed the state of insecurity, governance and the economy under the administration of President Bola Tinubu.
Speaking on insecurity Onovo expressed worry on how the federal government is handling security concerns, alleging that the Federal Government had continued negotiating with armed groups and paying ransoms to secure the release of abducted victims rather than decimating and stamping them out with superior power force of the state.
The former presidential candidate questioned the sincerity of the government’s anti-terrorism efforts, alleging that the ruling party lacked the commitment to decisively confront insecurity.
On the growing campaign for the establishment of state police, Onovo cautioned that decentralising policing powers without addressing underlying governance issues could create additional security challenges.
“There are so many risks with state police. In our circumstances, state police may compound insecurity with the challenges of abuse of authority, duplication, waste and unproductive rivalry,” he said.
He also raised concerns over the financial capacity of many state governments to sustain security outfits, noting that some states still struggle to pay workers’ salaries regularly.
According to him, failure to adequately fund state-controlled security agencies could create further risks if armed personnel are poorly paid.
Onovo equally criticised the list of ambassadorial nominees approved by the Senate, now sent to different countries, describing the nominees as largely political loyalists of the ruling party.
He accused the administration of incompetence and poor governance, claiming that insecurity, inflation, unemployment and national debt had worsened significantly under the current government.
The former NCP presidential candidate also faulted the removal of petrol subsidy by the Tinubu administration, insisting that the policy had triggered inflation, unemployment and widespread hardship without delivering meaningful benefits to Nigerians.
He argued that repairing and operating local refineries would have been a more effective strategy for reducing fuel costs and easing pressure on foreign exchange demand.
Onovo maintained that Nigeria’s worsening economic and security situation reflected what he described as policy failures by the current administration.
