By Mustapha Sumaila
The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed has disclosed that he will present request for state police made at the Town Hall Meeting on National Security organised by the Federal Government recently to the National Economic Council, NEC.
Participants at the Town Hall meeting had recommended that establishment of state police should be supported by the National Assembly as well as the House of Assembly in states.
Speaking in Abuja at a News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) flagship interview programme, NANForum, Mohammed said the recommendation was based on the consensus that state police would give governors better leverage in the handling of security issues within their domains.
Mohammed said the recommendations from the town hall meeting held on April 8 in Kaduna would be presented to the National Economic Council (NEC) at its meeting on Thursday.
NEC is a decision making body presided over by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo and has all the 36 governors, FCT Minister and some ministers as members.
The minister also disclosed that the town hall meeting recommended decentralisation and reformation of the judiciary, adding that this should be done through constitutional amendment.
Autonomy for local governments, he said, was also adopted at the town hall meeting.
“Another resolution is that every level of government must ensure that every child of school age has compulsory and free primary education.
“One of the discussants took us back to 1973 under Gen. Yakubu Gowon regime when there was a national retreat; at that national retreat, it was resolved to come up with just one national pledge.
“They pledged to ensure that Nigerians will not go through any civil war again and at the end of that retreat, government came up with this single pledge that all children born after the end of civil war must have free and compulsory primary education, ” he said.
The minister noted that the call for compulsory and free education was reinforced at the meeting.
Mohammed added that acquiring basic education would help in reducing banditry, kidnapping, insurgency and other social vices.