Wike Delays Governors’ Endorsement of Creation Of State Police
Resolutions that would have led to the creation of the state police have once again been postponed by the Federal Capital Territory Administration’s refusal to submit its recommendations under Nyesom Wike.
36 states presented their proposals at the National Economic Council (NEC) meeting on Thursday, which was presided over by Vice President Kashim Shettima. The majority of the governors supported the establishment of state police.
While briefing state house correspondents, Uba Sani, the governor of Kaduna State, provided the endorsement.
He disclosed that a firm stance would be taken at the upcoming NEC conference, which is scheduled for January 2025.
Remember how it was mentioned at an earlier meeting in November that Kwara, Kebbi, and Adamawa still needed to submit their perspectives 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.
“Today, about 35 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. After the report, there will be deliberation at the next NEC meeting which is likely taking place in January. 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.
“So all we are saying here is that 35 states have made their 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 spaces 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,” he stated.
