Insecurity: Governors demand NEC level security committee

Governors of the 36 states of the federation on Wednesday night met in Abuja and demanded the setting up of a security committee at the level of the National Economic Council (NEC).

NEC is made up of Vice President Yemi Osinbajo as the chairman, all state governments as some key ministers.

Rising from the meeting of the Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF), they resolved that the committee was necessary to tackle the growing security challenges in the country.

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Chairman of the forum and Ekiti state Governor, Dr Kayode Fayemi who read the communique issued at the end of the meeting, however, stated that the governors were yet to take a decision on the issue of state police.

He said: “We did not discuss that, but we believe that setting up a security committee at NEC level will help to continuously monitor development and security situation in the country.

“We just told you that we want to maintain security as a growing concern. We know that state police is an issue that is of interest to citizens and governance.”

He disclosed that the governors also resolved to relaunch “its flagship of state peer review mechanism programme designed to assist states foster governance and accelerate the rate of development through periodic reviews of progress made by state governments.”

He said the forum agreed to hold a one-day interactive session with the World Bank and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation on the ongoing development engagements across the states, which he said, is expected to hold on June 26.

According to him, the event would also host an Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) retreat with the Joint Tax Board and chairmen of Internal Revenue Services of the states.