Governors endorse state police to address insecurity

Strong indications emerged on Thursday that the creation of state police to address the issue of insecurity in the country may soon come to fruition as a majority of the 36 state governors endorsed the policy at their National Economic Council (NEC) meeting.

The only setback recorded while NEC members met at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, was the failure of the Federal Capital Territory Administration under Nyesom Wike to submit its recommendations.

The meeting however gave indications that final resolutions on state police creation may come at the next meeting in January 2025.

Briefing newsmen after the NEC meeting chaired by the Vice President Kashim Shettima, Kaduna State governor, Uba Sani confirmed that 36 states have submitted their recommendations with a majority of the governors favourably disposed to the creation of state police.

Sani assured that at the next meeting, NEC will take a final position on the matter.

At a previous meeting in November, Kwara, Kebbi, and Adamawa were said to be pending in terms of submitting their positions on state police.

“Today, one of the discussions we had at the NEC meeting was the update on the creation of state police. As you are aware, there was a submission by States toward the establishment of state police,” Sani said.

“Today, about 36 states have already made their submission for establishing state police in Nigeria. And I can say here that from what is available, virtually most of the states are in agreement with the establishment of state police in Nigeria.

“But today, the council decided to step down the discussion until the next council meeting, because we need to come up with a report from the secretariat. And after the report, there will be deliberation at the next NEC meeting that is likely taking place in January. And not only that, there’s also a resolution in the last NEC meeting, which today the Secretariate have also agreed on that there will be further stakeholder engagement after the panel and deliberation by the members of the NEC. ⁣
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“So, all we are saying here is that 36 states have made their own submission, and many states are in agreement for the establishment of state police, considering the fact that virtually every state has their peculiarity in terms of the problem we are having of insecurity in our own states.

“Knowing fully well that we have a lot of ungoverned space in Nigeria, and also that we have a lot of deficit in terms of number of boots on ground, looking at the fact that a lot of security agencies, the police, the army and other relevant security agencies have no personnel to cover all the government space, that is the reason why most of us agreed that establishment of state police in Nigeria is the way forward toward addressing the problem insecurity in our own country.”