By Sani Gazas Chinade, Damaturu
The Kulen Allah Cattle Rearers Association of Nigeria (KACRAN) has challenged and rejected the creation of state police, insisting that job creation and dialogue offer the best prospects for ending insecurity in Nigeria.
In a statement issued in Damaturu by Khalid Muhammad Bello who is the National President, of the association it said its position followed months of field consultations across the North West and North Central regions at large.
“While we acknowledge the urgency behind this debate, KACRAN believes that dialogue and massive job creation offer a more sustainable, cost-effective and unifying path to peace than the creation of state police,” the statement read.
KACRAN noted that the demand for state police first emerged during the First Republic (1960–1966) and has resurfaced with each rise in insecurity.
It also argued that Nigeria’s earlier decades of relative peace were not due to state police, but to stronger community structures and economic opportunities.
“Nigeria lived in relative peace and harmony in earlier decades not because of state police, but because the root causes of conflict were better managed,” Bello said.
It said insecurity is largely driven by poverty, idleness, farmer-herder competition and exclusion, issues it believes are better addressed through dialogue and employment rather than policing.
KACRAN also warned that pastoralists would be most vulnerable in states with anti-grazing laws, and that state police could be abused by authoritarian state actors.
The association further urged the Federal Government to expand recruitment into the Police and Armed Forces, invest heavily in job creation and food security, and institutionalise dialogue through traditional rulers and community leaders.
According to Khalid, “KACRAN remains a dependable partner to the Federal Government and all security agencies in the collective effort to secure Nigeria for all its people.”
