Indications have emerged that the governors of the 36 states of the federation have endorsed the creation of state police, following the submission of their reports to the National Economic Council (NEC).
Kaduna State Governor, Sen Uba Sani made this known on Thursday while briefing State House correspondents at the end of 147th NEC meeting chaired by Vice-President Kashim Shettima in Abuja.
Governor Sani revealed that many states were in agreement with plans to establish state police in view of the fact that virtually every state in the country is battling one form of security challenge or another.
In his words: “there are a lot of ungoverned territories in Nigeria, and deficit in terms of the number of security officials”.
Sani added that the Police, the Army and other relevant security agencies had no personnel to cover all the states and the country as a whole.
“That is the reason most of us agreed that the establishment of state police in Nigeria is the way forward to address the problem of insecurity in the country.
“So, today one of the topics of discussion at the NEC meeting is the update on the creation of the State Police.
“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,” said the governor.
He, however, said the council decided to step down the discussion on the state police until the next NEC meeting in January 2025.
“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.
“There will be further stakeholder engagement after the panel and deliberation by the members of the NEC,” Uba said.
The NEC had during its 146 meeting held on November 21, mandated three states and the FCT (Kwara, Adamawa, Kebbi and the Federal Capital Territory) to submit their positions on state police within one week.
Bayelsa State Governor, Douye Diri, had explained that 33 states had submitted their positions, except Adamawa, Kebbi and Kwara.
The council had mandated the remaining states and FCT to make their submissions within one week in order to present a consolidated state position on the state police at today’s NEC meeting.
