President Bola Tinubu and the State governors at a state of the nation meeting Thursday in Abuja, discussed the possibility of establishing state police as a measure to tackle insecurity.
Minister of Information Mohammed Idris who spoke to journalists after the meeting, said this was against the background rising cases of terror and crime with different states and groups setting up their own security outfits.
“Now, there is also a discussion around the issue of state police. The federal government and the state governments are mulling the possibility of setting up state police,” Mr Idris said.
“Of course, this is still going to be further discussed. A lot of work has to be done in that direction. Both the federal government and the state governments agree to the necessity of having state police, now this is a significant shift. But like I said, more work needs to be done in that direction.”
The President and the governors also talked about increasing the capabilities of forest rangers to prevent criminals from operating in the forests, where most kidnappers prefer to hide their victims.
Speaking on food security Mr. Idris added.
“At this point, the nation requires food to be brought out to the people so that we can control prices and put food on the table of most Nigerians, other commodity traders are busy hoarding these commodities so that Nigerians will suffer or they will make more money as a result.
“Nigeria has the potential to feed itself and even be a net exporter of food items to other countries. And we do not also want to reverse some of the progress we have seen in terms of food production in this country,” Mr Idris said.
“What we’re seeing now is just a temporary difficulty that will soon go away. Therefore, the solution to it is by continuous investment in agriculture so that food can be made available to all Nigerians.”
