The Presidential Working Group on police reform has said it will transmit the National Policing Bill to the National Assembly within two weeks.
Chief of Staff to the President and Chairman of the Working Group, Femi Gbajabiamila, disclosed this on Thursday after a steering committee meeting at the State House in Abuja, while briefing journalists.
“The National Policing Bill is more or less ready for transmission to the National Assembly. We will probably have one more meeting after this to cross the t’s and dot the i’s and make sure every area is covered. So, we are 90% ready,” he said.
He added that the governors had raised “one or two observations” and that the bill should be ready in about a week.
Gbajabiamila described the legislation as “the most consequential Bill of the administration so far.” He said it has undergone rigorous review in recent weeks, since the steering committee began deliberations on August 3.
Asked whether states might delay passage of the Sixth Constitution Alteration Bill (State Police), given reports that only about six of the 36 states have so far passed the amendment, Gbajabiamila said there was a “national consensus” among Nigerians on the need for the change.
“I see no reason why anyone will want to have a rethink on it,” he said.
The meeting was attended by the Chairman of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum and Kwara State Governor, AbdulRazaq AbdulRahman; Ogun State Governor Dapo Abiodun; Kaduna State Governor Uba Sani; and Inspector General of Police Tunji Disu.
The Attorney General and Minister of Justice was represented by the Solicitor General and Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Justice, Mrs Beatrice Jedy-Agba.
Other members present included the Chairman of the Policy Advisory Committee, Justice Abdullahi Liman (rtd); Head of the Nigeria Police Reform Secretariat, Prof. Olu Ogunsakin; Special Adviser to the President on National Assembly Matters (House of Representatives), Dr Lanre Smart; and the committee’s Secretary, Nnadubem Moghalu, who is Senior Special Assistant to the President on Planning and Research.
The Nigerian Bar Association’s president was also represented, as was the National Security Adviser, by AIG Abraham Nabhon Thomas.
