The Lagos State House of Assembly has kicked against the position of the Inspector-General of Police, IGP, Olukayode Egbetokun, that Nigeria is not ripe for the establishment of state police.

Speaker of the House, Mudashiru Obasa, directed the Clerk of the House, Olalekan Onafeko, to write the Inspector-General and the National Assembly stating that the state lawmakers reject Egbetokun’s position.

Recall that the IGP, represented at a recently held one-day dialogue on state policing, themed, ‘Pathways to Peace: Reimagining Policing in Nigeria,’ opposed the establishment of state police, arguing that it would increase ethnic tension and cause divided loyalty in states of the federation.

The IGP also suggested that the Federal Road Safety Corps and the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps be merged with the police force.

However, speaking at plenary on Monday, Obasa, who noted that the FRSC and the NSCDC have not been able to solve the problems of accidents on roads and pipeline vandalism respectively, wondered how effective they would be if they are merged with the police force.

“In Lagos State, we have the Security Trust Fund through which successive administrations starting from that of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu have provided enormous support to the police command in Lagos State. Yet, crime of different dimensions has continued.

“This shows that no matter what Egbetokun has proffered as solution, such won’t solve our problem. The position of the IGP is unacceptable.

“We strongly believe that if we have state police, we would be able to solve the issues of crime in our nation or reduce it to the minimum.

“As we have seen in other climes, the United Kingdom has different levels of policing just like the United States of America. So why should ours be different?

“The lives of our people are very important and we must do everything possible to make sure we protect lives and property. We want to state categorically that we believe in state police and we want to urge the National Assembly to continue with its intendment to establish state police through the process of constitutional amendment,” Obasa said while praising President Tinubu for his resolve to end insecurity in the country.

Commending the Speaker for his stand on the issue of state police, the lawmaker representing Badagry Constituency 1, argued that with its current structure, it would be difficult for the Nigeria Police Force to effectively secure the country.

Also declaring his support for state police, another lawmaker, Hon. Sa’ad Olumoh (Ajeromi/Ifelodun 1), said each Nigerian state currently has a local security outfit in the semblance of state police.

“Today, which state does not have state police one way or the other? This is a cause that should be supported. For the IG to come out and say state police is not in the interest of Nigeria shows he is not considering the reality of insecurity on Nigerians,” he said.

The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board has released an additional 531 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination results.

JAMB said the newly results were the 64,000 earlier withheld because the candidates were suspected to have committed infractions

The board disclosed this in a statement, by its spokesman, Fabian Benjamin.

The said: “As promised, the Board is proceeding with the screening of over 64,000 withheld results. It has, however, released additional 531 results taking the total number of results released to 1,842,897. In the course of the exercise, other cases of examination misconduct were also established to make a tally of 92 from the 81 initially discovered.

“The Board is also looking at cases of unverified candidates and would soon come up with a position.

“Similarly, the attention of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board(JAMB) has been drawn to some fallacious publications purporting that an unknown candidate, who did not sit the Board’s 2024 UTME, obtained scores.

“This is fake, malicious and a calculated attempt to undermine the integrity of the Board. The public is urged to disregard such irresponsible publications.

“To underscore the fact that the publication is crafted by mischief makers to paint the Board in bad light, the publication, which levels such a grievous allegation, has no details of the candidate for proper verification.

“The Board is not surprised as this is the season of mischief makers, who would want to deceive gullible candidates. The examination template of the Board is designed with the highest sense of responsibility and is not an allocation platform where scores are doled out to candidates.

“It is most unfortunate that anybody could even believe such narration or that the story could even gain traction given the Board’s integrity.

“This again has gone to further vindicate the Board’s stance that candidates should desist from disclosing their classified details to third-parties.

“In investigating some of these allegations, the Board discovered that some of these mischief makers copy results sent to other candidates, edit the details sent to themselves and then parade this as emanating from the Board.

“The Board challenges any candidate, parent or anybody with such a claim or information to prove it wrong by coming forward with the details of such claims and the phone number with which such results were conveyed.

“The attitude of these mischief makers would only propel the Board to further tighten the process of checking its results to make it more personalized and sure would be stringent when it should actually be a simple and straightforward exercise.

“The Board reiterated that neither its results nor any of its processes have been compromised. Hence, it will continue to protect the integrity of its systems against such malicious actors, who are hell-bent on creating confusion where none existed.

“Consequently, the Board is primed to adding more features like registration number to the existing UTME Result checking process going forward to make it extra difficult for anybody to edit.

“Candidates are, therefore, urged to securely keep their details secure for if they are found associating with any of these mischievous elements, they would be treated as collaborators.

“For now, the method of checking the 2024 UTME remains sending UTMERESULT to 55019 or 66019 and not through any other process. The result, at the moment, is not on the Board’s website.”

1. The federal government has declared that it will take the naira off of all peer-to-peer (P2P) exchanges. During a virtual conference with blockchain stakeholders on Monday, Emomotimi Agama, the Director General of the Securities and Exchange Commission, made this declaration.

2. The Federal Government is not considering requests from any country to establish a military base in Nigeria, Information and National Orientation Minister, Mohammed Idris said on Tuesday. Idris dismissed as unfounded reports that the government was considering the citing of a military base in the country, saying Nigeria “is not in any such discussion with any foreign country”.

3. All Progressives Congress (APC) in Ondo State has faulted reports by officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, that the party did not hold a primary election in Ilaje Local Government Area. It described the report as ‘shocking and lacking credibility’.

4. Rivers State Governor, Siminalayi Fubara, has bared his mind on the toxic relationship between him and the House of Assembly, saying the lawmakers led by Martins Amaewhule no longer exist in the eyes of the law. The Governor spoke when he received on a courtesy visit the Bayelsa delegation of political and traditional leaders led by former Governor Henry Seriake Dickson at Government House in Port Harcourt on Monday.

5. The Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, has directed banks in the country to implement a 0.5 percent cybersecurity levy on electronic transfers. In a circular signed by Chibuzor Efobi, Director of Payments System Management, and Haruna Mustafa, Director of Financial Policy and Regulation, the apex bank disclosed that the implementation of the levy would start in two weeks time.

6. Vice-President Kashim Shettima has taken a detour and returned to Nigeria, thereby aborting his planned trip to the United States of America to attend the 2024 US-Africa Business Summit in Dallas, Texas.

7. The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission has arrested six senior officers of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps over alleged N6bn fraud. The senior officers are currently being grilled by EFCC interrogators at the commission’s headquarters, Jabi, Abuja.

8. The Presidency, on Monday, tackled former Vice President Atiku Abubakar over his claim of conflict of interest in the award of the Lagos-Calabar coastal highway by the Federal Government. Atiku, in a statement on Sunday, claimed that the road project was awarded to Hitech Construction Company because the owner of the firm, Gilbert Chagoury, had business ties with President Bola Tinubu.

9. One middle-aged woman was shot while many others sustained varied degrees of injury in Ughelli on Monday as operatives of the Delta State Police Command resorted to forceful dispersal of a group of protesting women. The women from Oteri-Ughelli in the Ughelli North Local Government Area were protesting alleged incessant harassment and extortion by policemen in the community.

10. Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, and its Trade Union Congress of Nigeria, TUC, counterpart, have given the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission, NERC, till May 12 to withdraw the recent hike in electricity tariff or face unprecedented industrial action. The ultimatum was issued in a joint letter to the Chairman/Chief Executive Officer, CEO and copied to the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, SGF, the Ministers of Labour and Power and the electricity distribution companies, DisCos.