Security expert lauds defence budget, advocates state policing

A security expert, Mr Matthew Ibadin, on Wednesday commended the Federal Government for raising the defence and security budget from N3.89 trillion in 2024 to N4.91 trillion in 2025.

Ibadin, the Chief Executive Officer of Badison Security Ltd., said in an interview with the News men in Lagos that no amount of money spent on security could be considered excessive.

The expert emphasised that if insecurity persisted in Nigeria, economic activities might not thrive or achieve significant progress in the country.

Ibadin, however, expressed a preference for a significant portion of the budget to be specifically allocated towards redefining and enhancing the Nigerian Police Force.

“Defence and security is all encompassing, but we need to restructure the Nigerian Police because internal security relies on the police.

“The police are the ones who are supposed to invite the military to come to their aid if need be but in Nigeria, the military is doing the work of the police.

“This is the problem we are facing in Nigeria and the government should be able to revisit that problem,” he said.

Ibadin advocacated for the Nigerian Police to be restructured, decentralised for a devolution of power and for personnel to be trained and retrained on a regular basis.

He said that the government should create a system that would enable citizens hold state governors and local government chairmen accountable for the security system in their state.

“If we continue to maintain the culture, of central policing in the country, then we will continue to dance around insecurity.

“Without decentralisation, we will not be able to have an effective policing system in Nigeria. We can not run policing from a central zone alone.

“We need to bring the security architecture down to the state. We have over laboured the military enough and taken them off their primary duty,” the expert said.

Ibadin said that if we could have an effective policing system to supplement what the military was already doing, insecurity would be reduced to its barest minimum in the country.

He said that his expectation in 2025 is for the federal government to decentralise the police and redefine the security architecture for effective policing in the country.