Rep Stanley Olajide (APC-Oyo) has said that the 10th Assembly is committed to enacting laws for the establishment of state police to tackle insecurity across the country.
Olajide who is the Chairman, House of Representatives Committee on Information Communication Technology (ICT) made this known at a news conference on Wednesday in Abuja.
The lawmaker who represents Ibadan North West/South of Oyo commiserated with Oyo State Government and families of victims of the explosion which occurred in Ibadan, on Tuesday night.
“Community policing is actually one of the very smartest way to police your people; somebody sees something, somebody knows something, they need to speak at the right time.
“Failure to do so will cause situation like this. So, we are going to reopen that because as remember, we have also been talking about state police, we will be talking about community police.
“So, I think you know situation like this would actually present an urgency to the matter, so that that way, we can get the right support that we need to pass whatever legislation that we need to to pass for this.
“So definitely we are going to pick this up and it is going to be in the front burner of the activities of the House as soon as we reconvene as a House,” he said.
Olajide commended the prompt intervention of Gov Seyi Makinde of Oyo and all the first responders to the unfortunate incident. He explained that the explosion happened at about 8pm last night and the National Emergency Management Agency, Department of State Service (DSS) and the Police responded promptly.
The rep charged the security agencies to carry out a thorough investigation with the view to prevent future recurrence. Also speaking, Rep. Ademorin Kuye (APC-Lagos state) expressed condolence to the Government of Oyo and families of victims.
He said that there is need to implement true federalism which can accelerate the establishment of state police.
“I believe that President Bola Tinubu, working with the National Assembly will ensure that we have more state police very soon,” he stated.
NAN reports that so far, 23 states nationwide have local security outfits but not on a regional basis like the South-west’s initiative of the Western Nigeria Security Network (WNSN) codenamed Operation Amotekun (Leopard or Cheetah).
The states that operate one form of local security outfit or the other are Kaduna, Sokoto, Kano, Zamfara, Borno, Yobe, Rivers, Osun, Benue, Katsina, Cross River State, Enugu, Taraba, Adamawa, Anambra, Ondo, Ebonyi, Edo, Nasarawa, Plateau, Niger, Bauchi and Abia.