Worried by the spate of killings, abductions, and other crimes enveloping several communities in Nigeria, Tunde Bakare has called for the formation of zonal security councils and the decentralisation of the country’s policing system.

Bakare, who is the Serving Overseer of the Citadel Global Community Church (CGCC), said this in his state of the nation address in Lagos on Sunday.

According to the preacher, a former presidential aspirant of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), the surge in security concerns across the country, including the recent killing of over 150 persons in Plateau and Benue states, requires a new approach to tame.

“We must then reinstate national security federalism by activating constitutional procedures for multilevel policing, including local, state, and zonal policing systems,” Bakare said.

“Against this backdrop, we must redesign our security architecture by facilitating the formation of Zonal Security Councils, chaired by a governor from the respective zone on a rotating basis. Such Zonal Security Councils, which will be formed by state and local policing systems within respective zones, must be managed by nonpartisan security experts while the Chairperson at each point in time will represent the zone at the National Security Council.”

COMBO: Pastor Tunde Bakare and President Bola Tinubu

He said, “These steps would be further boosted by adequately retooling our security infrastructure to meet the complex demands and by remodelling our security infrastructure to end interagency rivalry. We must also recreate our national security culture by mandating the kind of organisational culture change within the entire gamut of our law enforcement agencies that can win back the trust of the people.

“Finally, these security reforms must also be backed by intense international engagement through a two-tier foreign policy thrust (the Trans-Saharan and the Trans-Atlantic) to boost our capabilities, and to combat terrorism, banditry, and other forms of insurgency”.