Former Deputy President of the Senate, Ike Ekweremadu, has said community policing cannot work effectively until the nation’s police structure is decentralised.

Ekweremadu, who spoke on Sunday at a security summit organised by the Agbaja Youths General Assembly in Udi Local Government Area of Enugu State, said the nation’s security challenges got escalated when decentralised policing was abolished.

Dr Luke Mgboh, media aide to Ekweremadu, in a statement said the senator opined that as much as community policing was a good option in addressing security challenges of the country, “it can only work in Nigeria when the police is decentralised.”

He said, “The police should be in charge of internal policing in the country while soldiers are for external services. The practice in most countries operating the federal system of government is decentralised policing. Ideally, we should have a federal, state and local government police for effective policing.

“For checks and balances, in cases of abuse by some actors, a federal police service commission is recommended to regulate the activities of the different tiers of policing. Until we decentralise our policing, we will not get it right security wise. Decentralised policing is also part of restructuring which many Nigerians have been clamouring for.”

Ekweremadu called on youths to shun cultism, reminding them that as much as making money was good, it was equally important to make it through hard work and in decent manner.