Kenneth Okonkwo, a chieftain of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), has accused President Bola Tinubu of dragging his feet on state police so the federal forces can be used to tilt the 2027 elections in the president’s favour.
Speaking on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily, Okonkwo dismissed the Inspector General of Police–led committee on state policing, saying only a National Assembly amendment to Section 214 of the constitution is needed — not police-led talk shops.
“Tinubu does not want state police until after the election so that he will use federal police to intimidate and manipulate the opposition so that there won’t be any resistance when they want to rig elections.
“The IGP has no business in this process. His business is to implement the executive orders from the president and implement the laws from the National Assembly. They should stop playing politics with the lives of Nigerians.
“It is sad enough that people are dying, and it is terrible that the president is playing politics with it. The IGP has no business in the process that will give us state police; that is pure politics.”
Okonkwo outlined the ADC’s security plan under its presidential candidate, former VP Atiku Abubakar: mass recruitment, asymmetric warfare training, modern equipment, better welfare for security personnel and stronger inter-agency coordination. He called the current approach “dangerously inadequate,” and asked rhetorically, “What prevents every state from having helicopter and a drone spying on these people from the air, then deploying special forces each time they locate them in the forest?”
“We don’t have an insecurity problem. What we have is incompetent and corrupt leaders. When good leaders come in, Nigerian problems can be wiped out in six months. That I can assure you.”
He pointed to the recent rescue of the sister and twins of a former Minister of Power in Oyo State as proof that motivated, equipped agencies can act. Warning on governors, he added, “If you do not give a governor state police, then the governor is blackmailable.”
On local government woes he blamed the federal-state fiscal setup: “A structural problem is what we have in this country. When we restructure, we will have the beautiful thing that we need,” he said.
Okonkwo also insisted the ADC remains the real opposition platform, called those who moved to the NDC “renegades,” and said the coalition survives despite APC attempts to “legislate and litigate” it out of existence.
