Governor of Benue State, Dr. Gabriel Suswam has added a voice to the opposition against the establishment of state police in Nigeria, saying state governors will use it against the opposition.
He also tied slow foreign and local investments in Nigeria to inadequate power supply.
Suswam spoke with journalists in New York after the third Nigeria investment summit Wednesday night.
According to him “State police is not good for Nigeria at this time. We still need to undergo some processes to enable us practise this successfully. Let us take for instance, I as a governor, I can decide to use state police to chase my opponents if it is established. With the state police, I can ask the police to arrest or even ensure that whoever I do not like in my state goes to jail.
Now you can see that the idea of state police is a very wrong one because Nigeria has not reached that stage.”
Speaking on the agitation that the presidency should come from the Northern zone in 2015, the Governor said that he was not against any group, region or party? making any agitation, but noted that it is very wrong to start talking about 2015 presidential election when it is clear that the present President of the country has just spent a little above one year in office as a democratically elected president.
“Anybody talking about 2015 now is a source of distraction because this will not make such leader concentrate on how to develop his area. I urge all the political office holders to forget about 2015 now and begin to concentrate on how to fulfill all the promises they made to their subjects during their campaigns. How will someone who has just spent a year plus out of a term of four years be talking of his ambition for 2015”
“Any agitation or aspiration regarding 2015 at this time is very senseless because there is no way any political office holder will be able to perform very well if he jettisons his primary duty which is to develop his area and begins to talk about an election that will not take place until the next two and half years or so,” he said.