For the umpteenth time, the Nigeria Senate Wednesday expressed grave concerns over the rising spate of the nation’s security challenge, declaring that time was running out.
To this end, the lawmakers vowed to subject the newly appointed Service Chiefs to thorough and critical screening.
This is even as one of the lawmakers, during debate on general insecurity in the country , Tolu Odebiyi (APC Ogun West ), declared nominations of former service chiefs as Ambassador-designate, uncalled for, having allegedly failed woefully to effectively tackle the problem of insecurity in the country.
Debate proper
Odebiyi in his contributions to the motion sponsored by Deputy Senate Leader Robert Ajayi Borroffice (APC Ondo North) and 106 others, said forwarding names of the former service chiefs namely, General Abayomi Olonisakin (rtd), Lt – General Yusuf Buratai (rtd), Air Marshall Sadique Abubakar (rtd) and Vice Admiral Ibok-Ete Ibas (rtd) as ambassadorial nominees to the Senate for confirmation is annoying, having allowed the problem of insecurity in the land to fester.
He said: “We need to be frank with ourselves, proposed appointments of the immediate past Service Chiefs as ambassadors is nothing but reward for failure because it was under them as heads of the various strategic security outfits, that the country got to this precipice of a civil war.
“We have a national crisis on our hands and this is not the time to play politics or be sentimental in any way. The former Service Chiefs didn’t do the expected as far as the worsening security situation in the country is concerned and do not in any way deserved to be compensated with ambassadorial appointments.
“There is also the need to ban open grazing in the country as well as carrying of illegal arms and ammunition by anybody or group of people.”
In his own contribution, Senator Suleiman Kwari (APC Kaduna North), said Nigeria was more or less becoming a failed state, requiring very urgent attention at all levels to save it from failing totally.
“As far as the problem of insecurity is concerned, focus of all political office holders should be solutions and not lamentation because we have sunk to a level of being seen as a failed nation”, he said.
On his part, another lawmaker from Kaduna state, Senator Uba Sani, attributed the festering of the crisis of insecurity in the country to unjustifiable negotiations being made with the bandits by some state governors.
He said, while Kaduna state Governor Nasir el- Rufai was against such negotiations, some governors of neighbouring states, were doing it and invariably frustrating the fire for fire efforts of the Kaduna state government against armed banditry, kidnapping and wholesome community attacks under the guise of herders/farmers’ clashes .
In her contribution, Senator Biodun Olujimi (PDP Ekiti South) said insecurity should be declared as national emergency in the country so that everybody would start to work on it as we are working on COVID-19.
Other dimensions to the debate
Contributions to the debate took different dimensions when Senator Abdullahi Adamu (APC Nasarawa West), condemned Governor Rotimi Akeredolu of Ondo state for allegedly sending Fulani herders parking from the state.
He said: “I don’t understand why a governor of a state will ask people who are not indigenes of his state to leave his state, while we see in the social media, houses of people that have been burnt who are not from the state.
“I commend Edo State governor who said he will protect every one making a living in his state. We need to find out exactly the truth or otherwise of these allegations of killings as reported.”
Countering, however, Senate Minority Leader Enyinnaya Abaribe (PDP Abia South), said Senator Adamu got the order issued by Governor Akeredolu wrong.
Abaribe said: “No Nigerian is being sent away from anywhere, criminals are being sent away from the forest where they are.
“When we come here and say such, you send the wrong message out. The message is simple. The Police IG has told us these are criminal elements coming from outside Nigeria. And what we should ask ourselves is, if someone is a criminal, and he is in the forest, what is he doing there?
“We either want to solve this problem or not. And in order to solve the problem, the desideratum is that all criminal elements coming into this county must be flushed out.”
In yet another contribution, an Adamawa lawmaker, Senator Binos Yaroe said majority of the kidnappers in the country were of the Fulani stock, also getting support from the elite of the ethnic group.
His position elicited some ill-feelings when he sought an amendment to the motion to read ‘The menace of Fulani herdsmen in Nigeria.’
While insisting majority of the arrested kidnappers were usually Fulani, the lawmaker said: “It is so because the Fulani men are being encouraged or allowed to do whatever they like. Recently, a Fulani herder was accused of causing mayhem and kidnapping a district head and in his response, he said, ‘we are not learned, we don’t know anything.
“The only thing we know is to graze our cows in the bush, it is you learned Fulanis that buy guns and give us and send us on missions. These people are being supported in high places. It must stop.”
At this point, Senate President Ahmad Ibrahim Lawan cautioned and warned against stereotyping in whatever form while the debate lasted.
“Distinguished colleagues, I have to say this, let’s not stick this kind of case of insecurity to an ethnic group, please,” Lawan said.
And taking his turn, Senator James Manager (PDP Delta South), said since most of those involved in armed banditry in the country and in particular, violent herders were not from Nigeria, a new security approach must be adopted by the government to checkmate them.
“Foreigners cannot be said to be coming to Nigeria to destabilise it without decisive actions taken by appropriate authority to stop their influx into the country.
“Time is running out for the country as far as this unabated insecurity problem is concerned. Urgent steps must be taken to prevent it from dividing the people along the fault lines,” he said.
Other senators like Opeyemi Bamidele, Solomon Adeola, Aliyu Sabi Abdullahi, Ibrahim Oloriegbe , James Manager and Francis Alimikhena among others, also contributed to the debate by calling for urgent actions from government at all levels.
They specifically declared that the time for creation of State Police has come , since crime is local.
Resolutions
In their resolutions, the lawmakers asked President Buhari to direct the National Security Adviser Babagan Monguno, Inspector General of Police Abubakar Adamu and the new service chiefs to come up with a proposal on how to re-jig the nation’s security architecture for more effective counter measures against the current security challenges.
Similarly, the red chamber resolved that the federal government should embark on an operation to checkmate proliferation of firearms and enforce the laws against illegal possession of firearms by arresting, disarming and punishing anyone in illegal possession of arms.
They also called on state governors to implement the National Livestock Transformation Plan – a modern scheme designed to eliminate transhumance in order to prevent farmer-herder conflicts and activate highly productive livestock sector in Nigeria.
Similarly, the Senate urged the federal government to review the ECOWAS protocol on the free trade agreement to help check the influx of criminals into the country.
Senate president
In his remarks after the adoption of the entire nine prayers as required by the motion, Senate President Lawan said required action against the worrisome insecurity in the land should start with thorough screening of the newly appointed service chiefs.
“It must not be business as usual; all the relevant committees already mandated to screen the newly appointed Service Chiefs should be very thorough and critical on the assignment.
“We must let the new service chiefs know the enormous challenges ahead of them and the need for them to brace up to them with new approaches, strategies and tactics that will give Nigerians the desired results,” he said.
