Northern Governors Backs Creation Of State Police Over Rising Insecurity

Northern governors yesterday warned that the region stood on the brink of losing its future to escalating insecurity and deepening poverty, unless leaders took urgent, decisive action.

They also called for state police as a way out of the high level insecurity in the north, and asked for a 6-month ban on mining in the region.

This is even as Kaduna State governor, Senator Uba Sani, urged his colleagues and traditional rulers to close ranks and confront the region’s deepening security challenges with sincerity and collective resolve.

The governors spoke at a time residents of Tsamiya village in Shanono Local Government Area of Kano State weekend came under attack again, as bandits abducted 11 persons, including a nursing mother.

This came as routine security operation at Government Day Secondary School, Dutse, Abuja, yesterday, nearly descended into chaos after some students misconstrued the arrival of soldiers as an attempted kidnapping, triggering panic across the premises.

This is even s the police command in Abuja weekend, successfully averted a planned mass abduction in a community within the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, following credible intelligence and a coordinated tactical operation by the command’s anti-kidnapping unit, after three of the bandits were in a firefight between both parties.

To rekindle the hope of parents, the National Security Adviser, NSA, Nuhu Ribadu, said on his visit to Kontagora, Niger State, yesterday, that the pupils and staff abducted from St. Mary’s Private Catholic Primary and Secondary School, Papiri, Agwarra LGA, were in good condition and would soon be reunited with their families.

Experts also pleaded with President Bola Tinubu to enforce the recent emergency he placed on security in the country, saying mere declaration was not enough to contain the high level insecurity in Nigeria.

Speaking at a joint meeting of the Northern States Governors’ Forum, NSGF, and Northern Traditional Rulers Council in Kaduna, Chairman of the Forum and Gombe State governor, Muhammadu Inuwa Yahaya, said the north was currently confronted with “the grim reality of insecurity and poverty that seek to undermine our very existence.”

The two-day meeting, held at Kaduna State Government House, drew 19 governors, traditional rulers, security chiefs and civil society representatives in what was described as a final push for a coordinated response to terrorism, banditry and social decay in the region.

Governor Yahaya said future generations would judge today’s leaders not by the number of projects they commissioned but by whether they were able to bequeath to them a northern Nigeria they could truly call home.