The National Economic Council presided over by the acting President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo (SAN), on Thursday commenced the process that could eventually lead to the decentralisation of the operations of the Nigeria Police Force as one of the ways to tackle insecurity in the county. The National Security Adviser, Babagana Monguno, disclosed this to State House correspondents at the end of the council’s meeting held at the Presidential Villa in Abuja. The council which is chaired by Osinbajo has all state governors and relevant ministers as members. Monguno said the council would set up a committee to achieve its goals of decentralising the police. He said the Inspector-General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, would head the committee that would have representatives from the six geopolitical zones of the country as members. “The council (NEC) decided that a committee would be set up with representation from each of the geopolitical zones to be chaired by the IGP so that we find ways of decentralising police operations so that there will be greater access to information and handling this (security) situation will be easier rather than a centralised and cumbersome approach,” he said. He said the decision to set up the committee was reached after he, on behalf of the nation’s security agencies, briefed council members on the general overview of the security situation in the country. He said increasing security threats underscored the need to deal with the problems collectively. Security challenges can’t be tackled in short period – NSA Meanwhile, Monguno has said the nation’s security challenges cannot be completely tackled within a short period. He however expressed the belief that collaboration among the tiers of government would go a long way in addressing the challenges. He added, “It is true that it is the responsibility of the security agencies to deal with these threats, but the complexities of insecurity in the 21st century are such that you need a whole of government and a whole of society approach in dealing with these issues. “I emphasised to the council the need for the states to collaborate with and support the Federal Government in dealing with each individual threat and find a way of linking with security agencies so that we can find a lasting solution. “These things cannot be overcome within a short period; that is the hard truth. What we have decided to do is to work on certain methods.” The NSA said the council reviewed the resolutions and recommendations of the 2017 Security Summit after which the state governors agreed to work with the security agencies on all the issues that were raised. He said all the recommendations from the summit would be revisited. Monguno added that the Federal Government was looking at other issues in dealing with problems coming from outside the shores of the country. These problems, he said, were being collated by the security agencies and a team would be set up under the supervision of his office to deal with the threats. Monguno also said the improvement in security situations in some parts of the country had nothing to do with the fact that general elections are approaching. “Several new operations have been launched. These operations are being reviewed in a more coordinated manner with other agencies that are not directly within the military component but with other MDAs and that have resulted in improvement and it has nothing to do with elections approaching,” he said. While also admitting the difficulty in coordinating the activities of different security agencies, Monguno said his office had in the last couple of weeks been addressing inter-agencies issues. He said Nigerians would soon begin to notice improvements. The NSA also disclosed that the government had started probing the claim by the International Committee of the Red Cross that 17,000 Nigerians are missing. “That report is being looked at by different agencies of government and we are awaiting their reports before we can comment on that,” he said.]]>

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