A member of the House of Representatives, Stanley Olajide, (APC-Oyo) has said that the 10th Assembly is committed to enacting laws for the establishment of state police to tackle insecurity across the country.

Mr Olajide who is the Chairman, House of Representatives Committee on Information Communication Technology made this known at a news conference on Wednesday in Abuja. 

The lawmaker who represents Ibadan-North West/South of Oyo commiserated with Oyo State Government and families of victims of Tuesday’s explosion in Ibadan. 

“Community policing is actually one of the smartest ways to police the 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 as I remember, we have also been talking about state police, we will 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 are going to pick this up and it is going to be in the front burner of the activities of the House as soon as we reconvene as a House,” he said. 

Mr Olajide commended the prompt intervention of the state governor Seyi Makinde and the first responders to the unfortunate incident.

He explained that the explosion happened at about 8pm on Tuesday and the National Emergency Management Agency, Department of State Services and the police responded promptly. 

The representative charged the security agencies to carry out a thorough investigation to prevent future recurrence.

Also speaking, another lawmaker, Ademorin Kuye (APC-Lagos State), expressed condolence to the government of Oyo State and families of victims.

He said that there was a need to implement true federalism which could accelerate the establishment of state police.

“I believe that President Bola Tinubu, working with the National Assembly, will ensure that we have more state police very soon,” he said.

About 23 states nationwide have local security outfits but not on a regional basis like the South-West’s Western Nigeria Security Network codenamed Operation Amotekun (Leopard or Cheetah).

The states that operate one form of local security outfit or the other are Kaduna, Sokoto, Kano, Zamfara, Borno, Yobe, Rivers, Osun, Benue, Katsina, Cross River State, Enugu, Taraba, Adamawa, Anambra, Ondo, Ebonyi, Edo, Nasarawa, Plateau, Niger, Bauchi and Abia.  

(NAN)