President Bola Tinubu has disclosed plans to rejig Nigeria’s security architecture so as to ensure the policing of specific economic areas such as the marine, mining sites and the nation’s forest.
Tinubu was said to have revealed this while meeting with governors of the All Progressives Congress in Abuja on Friday.
The President said there are plans to set up three brand new police formations, to augment the regular police.
He said the deployment of forest guards was being considered, with better training, modern technological gadgets and weapons to strengthen security.
In addition, the solid mineral and marine economic sectors will also be secured by special police.
“We have a big marine economy, and I do not see why we should not have the marine police.
“We will have the same in solid minerals to keep the scavengers away. I am ready to invest in security,” he said.
President Tinubu also revealed his plans to stock the nation’s mineral resources in reserve.
“We will buy our own minerals and keep them in reserves, especially gold, which will be effective in our foreign exchange reserves,’’ the President told the governors.
The President was also reported to have said that the former Kano State Governor and APC Chairman, Abdullahi Ganduje, had informed him that he had worked out a proposal on a school feeding programme.
President Tinubu promised to share the proposal among the governors for their input, before it is adopted for implementation, saying his goal is to use the feeding programme to draw more children to school.
He also spoke on the economic spin-off of the programme, spurring investments in agriculture, particularly in livestock farming and dairy.
President Tinubu charged the governors to come up with a comprehensive framework that will make the implementation of the programme successful across all states of the federation, taking into consideration the peculiarities of each locality.
“We have children of school age who are out of school. The way to promote education is to get all governors, including the opposition governors, involved in the school-feeding programme. Please, take it seriously.
“We should not measure the children as statistics. We should measure their return to classrooms as our achievement. We should see economic growth in terms of value and empowerment. We should set up a committee to look into the methods. I am ready to invest in school feeding,” President Tinubu said.
