Africa-Press – Nigeria. Governor Biodun Oyebanji of Ekiti State has mandated chairmen of local government and local council development areas to start holding security meetings as part of efforts to tackle insecurity headlong in their various areas.
The governor gave the directive on Wednesday during a security meeting with all council chairmen and heads of security agencies in the state.
According to him: “Our administration is based on consultation and we are not unmindful of what has happened in the state in the last few weeks and the efforts that government is taking to ensure that we don’t have a repeat of that very unfortunate development.
“I have decided to call this meeting so that we can share with you our own strategies and ask for input from you to finally agree on how to craft an enduring and sustainable solution to this. So, I am going to allow us to share intelligence as it concerns our local governments.
“I will brief you on what we have discovered, and then you will give us feedback from your respective local governments, this will help the security chiefs develop strategies that all of us will agree on and how we are going to implement.”
Speaking further, Governor Oyebanji said: “One thing that we have discovered is the lack of collaboration among local government chairmen that share boundaries on security. If there are three or four local governments that share boundaries, there is a need for you to jointly meet and share intelligence among yourselves and allocate responsibilities. Once you do that, you will not be duplicating your efforts.
“We also discovered that in most local governments, they don’t hold security council meetings. They collect the money and share it among themselves. I have met with the Obas. They told me that most of the past local government chairmen didn’t invite them to security council meetings. Going forward, we have decided that we will look at the security votes and see where we can scale up for you because of the challenges.
“Monthly Security Council meetings are now a must and this is going to be the procedure: statutory members that should be in that meeting include the chairmen of the council of traditional rulers or their representatives, all security chiefs in the local government and now a representative of the state government will be there and the resolution will be signed by everybody and sent to my office. Any local government that does not send a report as appropriate will have its security vote withheld. So, the condition to access this security vote will be contingent on the regular hosting of Security Council meetings.”
The governor hinted that his administration would soon liaise with the Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC, to generate and introduce a strategic security toll-free line where information could easily get to the security agencies for prompt action.
“I have told the Special Adviser on Security to give us a toll-free line that people can send information to on any intelligence you have gathered in your local government, but make sure the information is genuine,” he said.
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