…as he launches two books
The former Inspector General of Police (IGP), Dr Solomon Arase, who is also a former chairman of the Police Service Commission (PSC), has stated that for the Nigerian democracy to thrive, the security governance element must be effective.
Arase made this statement during the launch of his two books, ‘Readings On Election Security Management And Selected Readings In Internal Security Management,’ held on the 18th of February, 2025, in FCT, Abuja.
The chairman of the launch is the former President of the Republic of Nigeria, Goodluck Ebele Jonathan.
Arase said: “It could be safely affirmed that beyond the critical driving role of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), the quality of the legal framework governing the democratic process and the conducts of political actors, the professional output of the Police and the extended policing family within the democratic space remains a fundamental variable in our democratic journey.
“The import of this assumption is that for our democracy to thrive, the security governance element must be effective. This requires that the Police and other complementary security agencies must be mentally mobile to act with knowledge of not just the laws of democracy, but to have the critical thinking and intellectual robustness needed to guarantee that that they understand well enough the democratic space they police, the peculiar threats that could stress the process and law enforcement conducts that could call the credibility of the process to question.
“It also entails that they acquire strong and informed operational capacity that will position the institutions to aid other critical actors towards strengthening our democratic culture.”
He explained that his publications set out to address these critical issues by critically interrogating the complex dynamics of democratic security governance in Nigeria.
“The objectives are twofold. The first is to open up the intellectual space about the intellectual, legal and professional inputs into the field of democratic policing. The second is to equip the Police, the wider law enforcement community, the political class and other strategic actors in our democratic space with the requisite knowledge that will not only engender quality election security outcomes but act as a framework to hold law enforcement operatives accountable in the discharge of their electoral security mandate,” said Arase.
The launching of the books was attended by great nationalists, elder Statesmen, political actors, academics, industrialists, professionals, Civil Society Organisations, patriots and strategic security stakeholders, to mention but a few.
