– Admonishes Politicians on Use of Political Power
FOR those agitating for the establishment of individual state police apparatus in Nigeria, the prevailing political realities in the country may not augur well for the establishment of such.
That was the opinion given by President Goodluck Jonathan on Tuesday, at a meeting of the Nigeria Inter-Religious Council, hosted in Ilorin, Kwara State.
The president said that if state police organs were established at this time, politicians would possibly abuse what is meant to be local crime fighting outfits.
“State Police may be theoretically good, but looking at our political environment, it could be abused to the detriment of the country,” the President said.
The president also told the gathering that it is the general opinion of the members of the National Council of States that the idea of independent police outfits at the state level is not in the best interest of Nigeria unless the country’s political development is at a stage where the abuse of such outfit would not be the norm.
“The consensus,” according to Jonathan, “is that we should get to the point where we will be sure that whoever is in power will not turn it against the people. The first step is for us to have confidence in elections conducted at the state and local government levels.”
The President also told the gathering that consultations on the deregulation of the downstream sector of Nigeria’s petroleum industry were ongoing.
He said that state governors were expected to organize town hall meetings to explain the rationale for government’s stance on fuel subsidies to their people.
“Deregulation is not just about removal of subsidy but also about how we can stimulate the economy to create jobs for our teeming unemployed young men and women.
“Government is not unmindful of the hardship faced by the average Nigerian and it is doing its best to create conditions where each and every Nigerian can lift his or herself out of the doldrums of poverty.
“We are not going to celebrate corruption but fight it by doing things properly and not creating opportunities for it to thrive. We are going to systematically fight it by setting up structures and strengthening the anti-corruption institutions,” President Jonathan said.
He commended NIREC for contributing to securing the peace and progress of Nigeria through being a moderating influence amongst the adherents of all faiths.
“In your role as ambassadors of God on earth, you are expected to, and I am glad that you are actually and actively involved in guiding your faithful on the path of peace.
“We do not all have to agree with each other in every aspect of life for us to live in peace and build unity. What we simply have to agree on is the fact that Nigeria is our nation and we are all Nigerians and share a common patrimony and as such we have to practice the fundamental principle of inclusivity,” the President said.
Jonathan, responding to comments by participants at the meeting, also said he was an ardent believer in the diction that ‘power comes from God’, and after God, the people, and therefore, whoever arrogated power to himself was fooling himself.
According to him, “Power belongs to God. I believe in that, using myself as example. I have seen that those who desire power hardly get there. Those who hardly dream of it find themselves in power. The next after God is the people.
“You have seen mighty and powerful people like Gaddafi in Libya. Will you tell me power belongs to Gaddafi or the people of Libya? A human being that arrogates power to himself is just fooling himself. It is very temporary. When the people withdraw their power, you must leave,” he said.
Jonathan gave an insight into how some people had pressured him to exercise his powers differently, saying “Some people, when such issues come up, would say, look, you are the president of Nigeria; you are the head of the most powerful African country; you are the most powerful black man on earth. You may then begin to think that you are a tin god. But I want to advise that we don’t make our leaders to think that they are tin gods.
“Once you become a governor or the president, there will be songs to make them look like gods. It seems you just come from the blue; you have never been there before,” he added.
The president, therefore, admonished that leaders at all levels of government must regard themselves as servants rather than as rulers of the people.