Katsina State Governor, Alhaji Aminu Bello Masari, has urged the Federal Government to declare a state of emergency on the nation’s security.
Katsina is one of the epicentres in the nation’s North-West where banditry and other criminal activities reign supreme and cross sections of citizens traumatised.
Speaking on Saturday in Katsina at the opening of a meeting of Conference of Speakers of the Legislature from the 36 states in the country, Masari said that the security agencies were doing their best in efforts at tackling the state of insecurity nationwide but that the Federal Government ought to adopt more measures towards resolving the problem.
According to Masari, “the Federal Government should declare a state of emergency on the nation’s security.
“The security agencies are doing their best to curtail the state of insecurity in different parts of three country but more needs to be done to check activities of bandits and other criminal elements across the country.
“Our major problem in Katsina State is the security challenges facing us in parts of the state.
“With support from the Katsina State House of Assembly, some legal framework has been put in place while existing ones were restructured in order to address the security challenges.”
The Governor identified the 1975 Local Government Reforms as a fundamental factor engendering current security issues in the nation and also urged participants at the conference to adopt certain measures being implemented by Katsina State to check the state of insecurity.
“The 1975 local governments reforms removed the powers of traditional rulers without providing a replacement which has created serous gap in the system.
“The Katsina State government decided to review the system and bring on board the traditional institutions and other relevant stakeholders to participate directly in security decisions and management.
“We reviewed the state local government law and we have created created three-tier security committees across the 34 Local Government areas,to provide security agencies with useful information and assist in effective policing and ensure arrest of offenders and hand them over to the appropriate authorities.
“We also adopted the Security Containment Order which is another milestone achievement recorded in the security subsector as well as community conflict resolution centres across the state for civil and non-criminal cases, to reduce congestion in the courts.
“These measures have recorded tremendous success and I call on participants to use the Katsina state experience in order to bring meaningful progress and development to our respective states,” Masari said.
Earlier in his address, Chairman of the Conference of Speakers who is also Speaker of the Bauchi State House of Assembly, Abubakar Suleiman, regretted that the, ”the state of insecurity in our country today has assumed a disturbing dimension and hence has constituted a serious threat not only to economic growth and development but also to the peace and unity of the nation.
“This is the time therefore for all hands to be on deck to fight the menace of insecurity for the good of our nation.
“As representatives of the people at the grassroot, we are indeed worried by the negative trend of insecurity in the nation.
“We have therefore convened this meeting to discuss and proffer solution to this problem within our constitutional mandate.”
With the theme, “the menace of insecurity in the country and role of state Houses of Assembly to restore peace and order,“ a communique was still being awaited at the time of this report on Saturday afternoon.