Finally, President Bola Tinubu and the state governors on Thursday agreed to establish state police in the country to curtail issues bordering on insecurity.

This is as the president and the state governors have also discussed the possibility of improving the numeric strength of forest rangers to train them so that they can keep our forests and our borders very safe.

The president has also directed security Chiefs especially the National Security Adviser (NSA), Nuhu Ribadu, the Director-General of the Department of State Security (DSS), Yusuf Magaji Bichi and the Inspector General of Police (IGP) Kayode Egbetokun to crack down hoarding commodities in order to bring them to book.

Briefing State House correspondents at the end of the emergency meeting, the Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris said far reaching decisions were reached at the meeting including the consideration for the establishment of state police.

These among others were part of the resolution reached at the end of the emergency meeting summoned by the President at the Council Chamber, Presidential Villa, Abuja.

President Tinubu had summoned the meeting in view of the economic hardship in the country as well as the recent upsurge of insecurity in different parts of the country.

The emergency meeting also had in attendance the Vice President, Kashim Shettima and the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja, Nyesom Wike.

Since President Tinubu took over the administrative headship of the country and announced, “subsidy is gone”, the economy has witnessed a downward trend with the attendant hardship and high cost of living.

The situation has resulted in women and youth in different parts of the country going to the street protesting and there has been an increase in criminal activities with heightened tension in the polity.

Although Tinubu has directed his economic team including all relevant officials in the government to find a way to ameliorating the situation, the Special Presidential Committee on Emergency has been given approval to make available about 102,000 metric tons of assorted items including rice, maize, millet among others.

The state governors that attended the meeting are those of Ekiti, Delta, Borno, Lagos, Kwara, Nasarawa, and Edo.

Others are: Yobe, Anambra, Akwa Ibom, Abia, Plateau, Kaduna, Sokoto, Niger, Taraba, Adamawa, Cross River, Ogun and Enugu.

The minister said that there will be a series of meetings to fine tune the modalities for setting up state police.

He said, “But now, there is also a discussion around the issue of state police. The federal government and state governments are mulling the possibility of setting up state police.

“Of course, this is still going to be further discussed, a lot of work still has to be done in that direction. But the federal government and state governments are agreeing to the necessity of having state policy.

“Now, this is a significant shift. But like I said, more work needs to be done in that direction. A lot of meetings will have to happen between different governments and sub nationals to see the modalities of achieving this.”

On other outcomes of the meeting, Idris, said the meeting was at the instance of the President to intimate the state governors about what was happening, and what the federal government was doing and to also hear from the state governors their input about issues of development in this country.

According to him, “A lot of issues were discussed about the security situation in the country. The apparent food issue that the media has also been reporting about and some other measures that will help in improving the state of our nation.

“Now, the first point is that the governors and Mr. President have agreed to set up a committee to deepen the conversation that has happened at the just-concluded meeting. Of course, you know that it is impossible to complete most of the issues that were raised at the meeting so it is going to be a continuous one.

“Secondly, Mr. President and the governors have agreed that these kinds of meetings will continue in the interest of our nation.”It is important that all the time, the federal government and the state governors who are leaders at the subnational level continue to engage and interact collectively so that issues of national importance will continue to be addressed, and we don’t leave room for any speculation or for people who may seize the opportunity to say things that are not in the interest of our country.