Foreign trip: Tinubu returns, to meet service chiefs over mounting killings

In the ladt fortnight alone since the President travelled, no fewer that  150 Nigerians had been killed by armed marauders, who also destroyed many homes snd tgereby displacing thoussnds of citizens from tgeir communities.The worst hit are Benue and Plateau states. In Benue, at least 56 people were killed in Logo and Gbagir after the aeeas were attacked twice by suspected armed Fulani herdsmen.

Tinubu is reportedly was concerned about the deplorable security situation and would immediately meet with the service chiefs and the National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu, to map the way forward.

Meanwhile the Presidency has faulted the state governors for their poor handling of the situation, the kilkings sre riding because  tgry had not done enough.

Speaking on TVC’s Beyond the Headlines show with Nifemi Oguntoye Monday evening, Daniel Bwala, Special Adviser to the President on Policy Communication,  cited the governors’ poor funding of security outfits in their states in spite of receiving huge security votes.

“What we are finding, very sadly, is that there are some states where the governors give N20m to the SSS, N20m to the police, and N20m to the army as monthly allocation for fighting insecurity. And you hear their security vote is between N1bn, N2bn and N3bn. Where are we going?” Bwala said.On the clamour for state police, Bwala argued that the bloodshed could be curbed “within the laws and resources they (governors) already control,” if the state governors fund the federal agencies in their resoective states.

“There are people who still believe, within the present framework of the security architecture of the state, that we can deal with insecurity if we understand what it takes to do that,” he said.

“What does it take to do that? In every state, for example, there are the SSS, police, military, and paramilitary. Then, every state has the right to create a quasi-paramilitary outfit and get the support of the government to deal with legal issues.

“For example, a governor who gets more than N2bn to N3bn as security vote can decide to take only N1bn to buy equipment such as drones, vehicles and everything that is needed to do surveillance and fight security.

“That governor can give adequate infrastructure to help federal agents in their states…because crime in Nigeria is so dynamic; we’re hearing that the criminal elements even use drones. How can undemocratic elements use a sophisticated system of surveillance that the state does not have?

“Within the framework of what we have now, governors can deploy this security vote in its proper context. Take, for example, you go to every local government and create a local government vigilante. Go to the wards. Just the same way in politics, we have the polling unit, the ward, and the local government.

“If you create that kind of system of vigilance and vanguard, some of the people might be there to provide intelligence. Some will be there to make sure that they serve at the front line in dealing with these insurgents, believe me, we will achieve substantially.

“But we have always fed this lame excuse where governors will say, ‘I don’t have the capacity to do anything because I’m not the Chief Security Officer of my state,’” Bwala insisted.

Furthermore, he warned that state governors would be unable to sustain an entirely new police force since tgey find it difficult to pay salaries.

“By the time you create a state police now, a governor who says he’s struggling to pay salaries, you want to create another police system for him to pay them or to work with them free of charge?” he asked.

“Do you know what it means for a state to run a security outfit like a police system. It is no joke. Do we have the budget at the moment to sustain that?

“Now, I’m not suggesting that we don’t need it. But what I’m saying is we don’t have to wait for it before we can safeguard the lives and the properties of the people.”