Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has stressed the need for the establishment of state policing while noting that it is a major solution to the insecurity bedevilling the country.
According to Obasanjo, nation-building could only be achieved when the government was able to guarantee a safe environment for citizens.
He made this call on Friday in Lagos during a lecture titled, ‘Social responsibility in nation building,’ which he delivered at the 78th anniversary of Island Club.
“I have said it before and I will say it again. Nigeria should have state police in all the states so that they can adequately tackle insecurity. Guaranteeing citizens a safe environment and round security is one thing a government must do.
“No nation can be built where peace, security and stability are not assured or guaranteed and with reasonable predictability of the President and the future not enthroned,” Obasanjo said.
He also said a government that fails to listen to its citizens was doomed to collapse.
He said, “Any government that is deaf, dumb, and blind is a government that will not last. As a government, you need to listen to the people. If you fail to listen to the people, the day of reckoning will come for you and it will come soon. We can see it all around us; it has come.
“You have to realise that there is an element of hazard in life itself. What would make you not talk? Fear? There is a Yoruba proverb that says, ‘You talk, you die; you don’t talk, you’ll still die.’ Death is inevitable. As I am here, I am not afraid of death.
“It is painful what we are seeing. There are currently over four million out-of-school children in Nigeria. That is a fact. They cannot hide that. No Nigerian should bury their faces because they are scared of death. State the fact; if they want to deny it let them deny it.”
