THE Federal Executive Council (FEC) has ordered that a thorough investigation be carried out into an explosion that rocked Ibadan, Oyo State, on Tuesday.
The Council gave the directive at its first meeting in the year 2024 chaired by President Bola Tinubu.
Briefing State House correspondents shortly after the meeting, the Minister of Defence, Muhammad Badaru, said FEC also set up a committee to look into the issues of environmental degradation and deforestation.
He noted that the activities of illegal miners pose a huge challenge to Nigeria, hence the committee to come up with a roadmap for tackling the menace.
Constituting the committee, according to Badaru, are the service chiefs, the ministers of defence among others.
Similarly, FEC noted with concerns the spate of kidnapping in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) and mandated the service chiefs to beef up security in the nation’s capital.
The defence minister explained that during a meeting with service chiefs on Tuesday, President Tinubu ordered to them to swing into action and bring the menace to an end.
He attributed the rise in security challenges within the FCT to the military operations in the North-West and parts of North Central which have forced the bandits to flee their hideouts.
He said most of the cases of kidnapping in the FCT happen in the suburbs.
Badaru, however, condemned a situation where families of victims of kidnapping engage in crowdfunding on radio and other media platforms to source for ransom.
He said the Nigerian Terrorism Act criminalises such act especially that it emboldens the criminals.
