From Sani Gazas Chinade, Damaturu
The Kulen Allah Cattle Rearers Association of Nigeria (KACRAN) has challenged and rejected the renewed push for state police, insisting that job creation and dialogue offer the best prospects for ending insecurity in Nigeria.
In a press statement issued in Damaturu, the National President of the association, Khalid Muhammad Bello, said the group’s position followed months of field consultations across the North-West and North-Central regions.
“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 whenever insecurity has worsened.
The association argued that Nigeria’s earlier decades of relative peace were not due to the existence of state police, but to stronger community structures and better 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.
KACRAN said insecurity is largely driven by poverty, unemployment, farmer-herder conflicts and social exclusion—issues it believes can be better addressed through dialogue and job creation rather than additional policing.
The association also warned that pastoralists could be particularly vulnerable in states with anti-grazing laws and expressed concern that state police could be abused by authoritarian state governments.
KACRAN 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 Bello, KACRAN remains a dependable partner to the Federal Government and all security agencies in the collective effort to secure Nigeria for all its people.