The Leader of the Senate, Opeyemi Bamidele, strongly condemned the kidnapping of 87 students and teachers in Borno and Oyo states, which occurred within a 24-hour window.
Bamidele, who serves as the Vice Chairman of the Senate Committee on the Review of the 1999 Constitution, noted that these latest mass abductions highlight the urgent need to fast-track the creation of state police, a measure currently being debated by lawmakers.
In a statement released on Sunday by his Directorate of Media and Public Affairs, Bamidele called for unified, strategic actions to secure schools across the country and protect vulnerable children from being forced out of the education system. Describing the abductions as a direct attack on Nigeria’s future, he pledged that the legislature would accelerate the constitutional amendment required to introduce state police as a support mechanism for national security.
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According to Bamidele, the 10th National Assembly is nearing the final stages of the constitutional amendment process to permit state-level policing, with the federal legislative phase expected to wrap up shortly.
He clarified that once the National Assembly finishes its work, the draft proposal will be transmitted “to the State Houses of Assembly for consideration and scrutiny, which would require a two-thirds approval before the state police could come on stream.”
The Senate Leader explicitly urged state governors and regional lawmakers to view the state police framework as a matter of vital national interest rather than a tool for partisan, ethnic, or religious politics.
Until the state police system is formally institutionalized, Bamidele urged both federal and state tiers of government to implement the Safe School Initiative immediately. This is viewed as a necessary stopgap to protect students and tackle the country’s out-of-school child crisis, which currently affects 18.3 million children.
He emphasized that the continuous targeting of schools by kidnappers “is a tragic national concern that negates our national development indices. We cannot and must not allow it to continue.
At the National Assembly, we will rise against this trend and put an end to it through the instrumentality of legislation.”
Looking ahead to legislative priorities, Bamidele outlined the steps lawmakers intend to take upon returning to the chamber.
“As soon as the National Assembly resumes plenaries on June 2, we will perfect all outstanding legislative initiatives that have been introduced to decisively address security challenges in the federation.
“One of such initiatives is the ongoing review of the 1999 Constitution that seeks to establish state police, which is now at an advanced stage.
Another is the amendment of the Terrorism (Prevention and Prohibition) Act, 2022 aimed at strengthening the system of consequence in the country’s justice sector and discouraging heinous crimes nationwide,” Bamidele stated.
