The Nigerian Governors Forum has supported Vice President Yemi Osinbajo’s calls for the creation of state police.
The Chairman, Nigerian Governors Forum and Governor of Zamfara State, Alhaji Abdulaziz Yari, said in Abuja that the governors were in support of the creation of state police.
Yari’s comments came after Osinbajo argued that state police was the way to go in tackling security challenges.
Osinbajo had advocated the introduction of state police at the start of a two-day security summit organised by the Senate in the nation’s capital saying that a ‘’centralised system as is being practiced, cannot effectively secure the country’’.
He also expressed the need to strengthen the Nigeria Police Force and proposed that the current number of police in the country be tripled.
According to him, meeting the one policeman to 400 persons approved by the UN requires triple of the country’s current police force as well as a well-funded police; military and security agencies.
He said the country must intensify its collaboration with the neighbours to prevent the movement of persons with small arms and disarm pastoralists and other bandits passing through the nation’s borders.
He added that every Nigerian was entitled to adequate security by the government saying that the security challenges of the country were complex and nuanced.
Osinbajo argued that Nigeria’s is over 900,000 square Kilometres and 180 million people which required far more men and materials than it has at the moment.
However, In expressing support for the state police, Governor Yari, suggested it should be introduced in phases due to cost implication.
