By Ahmed Idris
The National Economic Council (NEC) has set up a committee headed by the InspectorGeneral of Police (IGP) Mr. Ibrahim Idris to come up with recommendations on fresh moves to decentralise the Nigeria Police.
Other members of the committee are representatives from Zamfara, Ondo, Plateau, Ebonyi, Katsina, Edo and Borno states.
Addressing State House correspondents at the end of the monthly NEC meeting in Abuja, National Security Adviser (NSA), Major General Babagana Monguno (rtd.), said the decision was taken in order to tackle the numerous security challenges facing the country.
He said decentralising the police would aid greater access to information unlike the current centralised approach.
The NSA said council decided that cases of bandits should be prosecuted and adequately publicised by the state governments and that the Attorney-General was asked to personally lead the prosecution.
He assured that the intelligence community and security agencies would continue to sustain current efforts to mitigate the security challenges across the country.
Asked why there was lack of coordination among security agencies following the siege laid by the police and operatives of State Security Service (SSS) on Benue State House of Assembly and the National Assembly, the NSA blamed the situation on inter-agency problems.
“On lack of coordination, it is not easy to coordinate. Yes, all security agencies are supposed to be centrally coordinated but sometimes we have issues. But these issues are being addressed right now and that is probably why we are beginning to see some improvements.
“The truth is that we are dealing with a situation that is asymmetric, that is not normal, not conventional. In dealing with these problems there will be issues, inter-service issues, inter-agencies issues. My office has been trying to address in the last couple of weeks, hopefully we should be able to see some improvements,” he said.
The NSA said the federal government was looking into other security challenges outside the shores of the country, stressing that such threats are being collated by security agencies.
On the issue of 17,000 missing Nigerians reported by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), on August 2, the NSA said “that report is being looked at by different agencies of government and we are awaiting their report before we can comment on that.”
Also speaking, Governor Abubakar Badaru of Jigawa state, said the chairman of Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Mr. Babatunde Fowler, briefed the council on tax remission by states, saying state governments have failed to remit N41 billion value added tax.
