The House of Representatives has renewed its commitment to passing bills on state policing as part of the measures to address the prevailing insecurity across the country.
As reported by Punch, Stanley Olajide, the Chairman of the House Committee on Information and Communication Technology, reaffirmed this commitment on Wednesday while addressing journalists in Abuja.
Expressing condolences to the Oyo State Government and the families of the victims, Olajide, who represents the Ibadan North West/South West constituency of Oyo State, emphasized the significance of communal policing as an effective means of safeguarding communities.
He further disclosed the House’s intention to revisit discussions on state police and community policing, highlighting the urgency presented by incidents like the Ibadan explosion.
“Failure to do so will cause situations like this. So, we are going to reopen that because remember, we have also been talking about state police, we will be talking about community police.
“I think you know a situation like this would actually present an urgency to the matter, so that this way, we can get the right support that we need to pass whatever legislation that we need to pass for this.
“Definitely, we’re going to pick this up and it’s going to be on the front burner of the activities of the House as soon as we reconvene as a House.”
Commending the Oyo State Governor, Seyi Makinde’s prompt response to the tragedy, the lawmaker said the state government acted swiftly to get the situation in check.
“We woke up to a very horrific situation in Ibadan which happened around 8 pm last night (Tuesday) from information gathered so far coming from the office of the Governor of Oyo State, who I must also commend immensely for his rapid response to the situation.
“I do not want to speculate on the numbers of lives yet, because I don’t have those numbers yet. But we do know that there are casualties.
“From the Office of the Governor, we also understand that a lot of people are in the hospitals receiving treatment. The Governor has actually made commitments to make sure that everybody is taken care of to get the first class medical treatment that they deserve and they are going to get,” he added.
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