THE Governors Forum has set up a six-man committee to explore the option of establishing state police in the country to tackle security challenges in Nigeria

The committee with representatives from the six geo-political zones of the country was inaugurated on Wednesday and mandated to come up with the best way of policing the country in view of the myriads of security challenges and its attendant lost of lives.

Prior to setting up the committee, the governors had a close door meeting with  Ibrahim Idris, inspector general of police, at the old Banquet Hall of the Presidential Villa.

After the meeting, Abdulaziz Yari, chairman of Governors Forum and Zamfara State Governor,  along with Rochas Okorocha, Imo State governor, said that the meeting was dominated by the presentation made by Idris.

According to him, “We discussed and we received presentation from the Inspector General of Police. He made a presentation to us canvassing for the support to introduce media outfits, radio and television for the force and as well the Police to go technologically from the manual way of doing things.

“The Inspector General of Police dominated the whole day of our discussion today understanding what the issue of Police is into the system whereby in some other nations it is 10 to one person but in Nigeria we have four hundred to one. So, they are having so many difficulties in funding which we are agreed that with the way things are going through the budgeting process, we cannot be able to fund police.

“So, the Inspector General of Police made us to know that there is a kind of trust fund bill which is before the National Assembly, asked for our support and the members of the National Assembly especially the House of Representatives.

“On our own part, we have put a committee in place. It is headed by the governors of Kwara, Imo, Delta, Ekiti, Bauchi and Sokoto to lead the committee so that they can be able to interface with the committee of Police and take the matter before the Acting President for further action. It is important for our nation. And as well there is the issue of kind of state police which is being discussed and we coming with so many options which we are expecting the committee will do and find safe way of policing in Nigeria.”

Also, the IGP stressed the efforts to address some of the challenges in the Police unit. “We had a fruitful discussion with them and obviously all of them are concerned about security in some parts of the country, virtually in all parts of the country. They are ready to support the Police Force to see how we can address some of the challenges,” he said.

– July 20, 2017 @ 8:45 GMT |