The governor of Enugu State and Chairman of the National Economic Council’s committee on the overhaul of police and other security training institutions in Nigeria said President Bola Tinubu has declared an emergency in the institutions as part of the government’s efforts to tackle criminality and security challenges across the country.

Mbah said the initiative to revamp the security training institutions across the country was a consequence of the president’s proposal to the 152nd meeting of the National Economic Council (NEC), a fortnight ago, where he expressed deep concerns over the poor state of the facilities nationwide.

The governor, who spoke at the Police Training College, Ikeja, Lagos, during the commencement of the committee’s tour of training facilities for the police and other security agencies nationwide, clarified that the initiative predated and had nothing to do with comments made by the President of the United States of America, Donald Trump, on the security challenges in Nigeria.

He explained that President Tinubu was of the view that the country could only get the best out of its personnel if they were trained in conducive environments and exposed to 21st-century tuition and equipment.

Mbah assured that the committee, which also has governors Uba Sani (Kaduna), Dapo Abiodun (Ogun), Kefas Agbu (Taraba), Umo Eno (Akwa Ibom), Dauda Lawal (Zamfara), and Abdullahi Sule (Nasarawa), as members and former Inspector-General of Police, Baba Usman, as Secretary, would treat the assignment with the seriousness and urgency it demanded.

Speaking with newsmen, Mbah said: “The President recognises that there is a need for bold and urgent steps to be taken to restore the pride, professionalism, and confidence of men and women in the security space.

“In the words of Mr President, you cannot expect our men and women, who are protecting our communities and are expected to uphold law and order, to be trained in an inhumane environment. That is not acceptable; that is essentially why we need to address this. This is no knee-jerk reaction or predicated on any reaction. This is a forward-thinking, proactive President, who believes that we have exposed our training institutions to decades of neglect and that there is a need for us to get our training institutions well-equipped. What we have just come here to do validates it.

“This committee has a mandate to report back in 30 days. So, we constituted ourselves into two teams. Members of the team who have gone to visit facilities in the Northern states are led by the Governor of Nasarawa State.

“Our team will be visiting facilities in the Southern states. We are also here with the consultants, who are going to have a deep dive to conduct a deep assessment of what we need to rebuild, equip, and sustain in our training institutions. The President saw this as an emergency.

“There is going to be an intervention for rebuilding and equipping these training institutions. As you know, the President has approved the recruitment of an additional 30,000 policemen and women. And that cannot be implemented if we do not have the institutions and facilities to train these personnel. So, this is an emergency, and we are treating it with the seriousness it deserves.”