President Bola Tinubu and governors of the 36 states of the federation, in what is believed to be a more effective approach in solving the nation’s insecurity challenges have resolved to consider the creation of state police to complement the existing policing structure in the country.
This resolution was part of the agreements reached at an emergency meeting between President Bola Tinubu and 36 state governors at the Aso Rock Villa, Abuja on Thursday.
Briefing State House correspondents after the meeting, Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris stated that deliberations on the matter was still at the early stage as it will require bringing all stakeholders on board to build a framework to bring it to fruition.
“The Federal Government and the state governments are mulling the possibility of setting up state police,” Idris said, noting that “This is still going to be further discussed.”
“A lot of work must be done in that direction. But if our government and the state governments agree to the necessity of having state police, this is a significant shift.
“As I said, more work needs to be done in that direction. A lot of meetings will have to happen between the Federal Government and sub-nationals to see the modalities of achieving this,” the minister stated
On the State of security across the nation, the information minister said president Tinubu and the governors all agreed that normalcy is gradually across the nation following the recent wave of kidnapping and other criminal activities that rocked the country.
“Mr President and the state governors have all agreed that we are seeing a significant improvement in the security situation around the country. This is not to say that the security situation has been solved completely. But we have seen a significant improvement.
“In Borno, for example, areas where farmers were not able to cultivate due to security, those farmers have now returned. It is the same in Jigawa and many parts of the country. The governors, including the Governor of Plateau State, also attested that there appears to be an improvement in security in these areas.
“President Tinubu and the governors also thanked the security agencies for the work they are doing. Some of them even paid the supreme price.” he sated
The government, the minister said will also recruit a yet-to-be-disclosed number of forest rangers and invest in more training to “keep our forests and our borders very safe.”
“And the governors have also asked the president to do more. In this direction, Mr President and the state governors have also discussed the possibility of improving the numeric strength of forest rangers to train them so that they can keep our forests and our borders very safe.” the minister noted.
The conversation over the creation of state police to curb criminal activities had been on the front burner at different fora even before the advent of the Tinubu-led administration as stakeholders in the security sector believes the nation is currently under policed with its current policing structure.
