Insecurity: Reps will pass Bill on State Policing, says Hon. Olajide

By Aaron Ossai

Amidst rising cases of violent crimes nationwide and recently the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Abuja, a member of the House of Representatives, Hon. Stanley Olajide has reiterated the 10th Assembly’s resolve to pass the State Policing Bill as part of the ongoing efforts to reduce insecurity in Nigeria to the barest minimum.

Hon. Olajide, representing Ibadan North West/South West federal constituency of Oyo State who gave the assurance at a press briefing commiserated with the 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 ways to police your people. Somebody sees something; somebody knows something they need to speak at the right time.

“Failure to do so will cause situations like this. So, we are going to reopen that because remember, we’ve also been talking about State Police, we’ll be talking about Community Police.

“So, I think you know a situation like this would actually present urgency to the matter, so that way we can get the right support that we need to pass whatever legislation that we need to pass for this.

“So definitely we’re going to pick this up and it’s going to be in the front burner of the activities of the House of Representatives as soon as we reconvene as a House”, Hon. Olajide who is the Chairman, House Committee on ICT said.

While reacting to the Tuesday explosion, Hon. Olajide who applauded the prompt intervention of Governor Seyi Makinde and all the First Responders noted that efforts are ongoing to nip the situation in the board.

“We woke up to a very horrific situation in Ibadan which happened around 8pm last night. From information gathered so far coming from the office of the Governor of Oyo State, who I must also commend immensely for his rapid response to the situation.

“The dynamite or explosive detonated, we do understand the loss of lives. I do not want to speculate on the numbers of lives yet, because I don’t have those firm numbers yet. But we do know that there are casualties.

“From the Office of the Governor we also understand that a lot of people are in the hospitals receiving treatment, which the Governor has actually made commitments to make sure that everybody is taken care of to get the first class medical treatment that they deserve and they are going to get”, he added.