Senate Leader, Opeyemi Bamidele, has said that the establishment of state police will go a long way in addressing the insecurity situation across the country.

Bamidele, who stated this in Abuja on Monday in a release issued by his media office, described the current state of policing in Nigeria as “ailing and dysfunctional.”

The statement read in part, “We must admit that the system can no longer guarantee the dignity of human lives and the security of collective assets considering our security dynamics in the Fourth Republic.

“The proposal for the creation of state police has been a subject of intense debate in the last decade or more.

“This, in part, can be attributed to the rise of armed attacks orchestrated by diverse interests either pursuing divisive agendas or seeking predatory ends in virtually all geopolitical zones.”

He noted that Nigeria, one of the world’s fastest-growing nations in terms of population, could not continue to operate a centralised policing system.

“Such a policing model cannot meaningfully address existential threats to our internal cohesion and stability. Unlike in 1979, when we had a population of 70.75 million, Nigeria is now a federation of about 229 million people and is currently the world’s sixth-biggest country.

“This is as shown in the demographic data of the United Nations. Contrarily, as revealed in the recent presentation of the Inspector-General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun, Nigeria has a police-citizen ratio of one to 650. “This ratio is a far cry from a ratio of one to 460, which, according to the United Nations, is a minimum requirement for every sovereign state or territory worldwide,” the Senate leader said.

The lawmaker further noted that the ongoing review of the 1999 Constitution would allow stakeholders to interrogate the nation’s security framework and take a position on the desirability or otherwise of state police in the country.

“We must go about it (state police) with a clear sense of self-realisation. We must, first and foremost, realise that the present police system is ailing and dysfunctional.

“We must also admit that the system can no longer guarantee the dignity of human lives or the security of collective assets.

“With this admission, it is evident that the option of adopting state police is no doubt inevitable as an antidote to the diverse security challenges that threaten us as a federation,” he said.

The Senate leader further said that as the debate for a more efficient police model continued, the National Assembly was under obligation to provide a legal framework with clearly defined preconditions.

“Sub-national governments must conform to the preconditions before establishing their policing formation. The role of all 36 state Houses of Assembly is equally indispensable in the quest to adopt the decentralised police system,” he said.

Cases of building collapse in the country have been attributed to the arbitrary increase in the price of cement by producers of the product.

The President of the Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria, Sadiq Abubakar, stated this on Monday in his remarks at the investigative hearing organised by the House of Representatives Joint Committee on Solid Minerals, Industry, Commerce and Special Duties, to probe the price increase of cement in recent times.

This was as the Chairman of the Joint Committee and member representing Karu/Keffi/kokona Federal Constituency, Nasarawa State, Gaza Gbewfi, summoned the Chairman of the Cement Producers Association of Nigeria, David Iweta, for questioning over the development.

Iweta, who did to turn up for the investigative hearing on Monday, was summoned after previously turning down two invitations by the committee.

The committee also charged the association to desist from using frivolous court injunctions to interfere in its work as guaranteed by the provisions of the 1999 constitution (as amended)

“You will agree with me that an increase in the price of cement is one of the key culprits of building collapse. I am trying to connect the hike in the price of cement with the standardisation in our building and the direct connection of building collapse.

“There is a connection with that, and I think this something we must interrogate,” the COREN President said.

Gbewfi, while agreeing with Abubakar, also argued that the cost of cement has also brought about an increment in housing rents across the nation.

“Anything that has to do with livelihood should be treated as an emergency’” the committee chairman said.

At the investigative hearing, the joint committee also queried representatives of the Nigeria Building and Road Research Institute and the Federal Competition and Consumers Protection Council on the arbitrary price increase.

Gbewfi also chided the representative of the Chief Executive Officer of the FCCPC, Boladale Adeyinka for not doing enough to protect the consumers of cement in line with the Act establishing the agency, saying, “You are a mother that has forgotten your children.”

The Osun State House of Assembly is to send a bill to Governor Ademola Adeleke to increase the salary package of some political office holders.

This was made known by the Speaker of the Assembly, Adewale Egbedun, during plenary on Monday.

The News Agency of Nigeria reports that the salary increment bill titled, ‘Osun State Public/Political Office Holders Reviewed Remuneration Package (Amendment No. 2) Bill 2024,’ was presented to the Assembly on April 30, 2024.

The Majority Leader and the lawmaker representing Ede North State Constituency, Kofoworola Adewunmi, presented the bill to the House as a private member bill.

While reading the policy thrust of the bill, Adewunmi stated that the last time the salaries of public/political office holders in the state were reviewed upwards was in 2007.

He said the salaries stipulated for public office holders in the Osun State Public/Political Office Holders Remuneration Package Law 2007 was, however, no more in tandem with the current economic realities.

“You will agree with me that the current economic reality is not the same as what was obtainable 17 years ago when the law was passed.