“Nigeria cannot continue to operate a unitary government and colour it as a federal system of government. This is creating avoidable tension in the polity that can explode in our faces with unpredictable consequences.” This was the position of the apex body of the Urhobos-the Urhobo Progress Union (UPU) Worldwide in a statement signed by its President General Olorogun Moses Taiga.
Taiga noted, “While the UPU believes in one Nigeria, the federating units and ethnicities should come together to decide the way forward. The Urhobo Nation believes in strong regional structures, control of resources by the federating units that will now pay taxes to the federal government. The federating units should also be in charge of their local security; they should continue to own schools and tailor them to their local needs, same for health facilities, etc.,” he said.
Relatedly, Taiga called on the Nigerian government to decentralize the Nigerian Police Force or risk plunging the country into anarchy. He observed that it is apparent that the nation’s current security architecture cannot cope with the current challenges and that there is there is a present and major need for a total overhaul of the policing system in Nigeria.
He said, “The level of insecurity in Nigeria has become worrisome. From Sokoto to Zamfara, Katsina, Taraba in the North, down to Ondo, Edo, Oyo and our beloved Delta, particularly Urhobo land, in the South, this story is the same: kidnappings, armed robbery, cult wars, killer herdsmen, farmers-herdsmen clashes and communal strife are rife. The police structure with a central command is no longer effective and appropriate to tackle our current internal security challenges.
“Consequently, the UPU reiterates its call for state police and community policing to enable each state and community deal with its peculiar security challenges. Already, all forms of security outfits are springing up in states and communities to deal with their peculiar security situation. The executive and legislature need to move faster and formalize the decentralization of the policing architecture in Nigeria, as we have in the United States, the United Kingdom and other big multi-racial or multi-ethnic countries like Nigeria, before the current haphazard springing up of security outfits degenerate into anarchy,” he warned.
