By Abdulrahman A. Abdulrauf Abuja
“I know they are doing a good job. I see them everywhere I travel to and they have become a pride of the society,” the Speaker, House of Representatives, Hon. Yakubu Dogara, speaking on the imperative of making the Nigerian Peace Corps an added nation’s security apparatus.
To this end, he said, in event of President Muhammadu Buhari vetoing the Bill, the National Assembly will muster two third and pass it on. Dogara, who spoke on Tuesday during an interactive session with journalists in Abuja, said it was erroneous to say there would be a confl ict of roles between the corps, the police and the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps.
“So, the Bill is still there, it’s before the President for his assent, if he doesn’t assent it for whatever reason, we are at liberty to recall it back to Parliament and muster the 2/3 in the House and Senate and pass it in spite of Mr. President’s veto. “But right now, that is not the discussion.
So, I’m not sure where it will be from here. For now, that is where we are, but we believe that if we escalate the issue of safety of lives and properties in our communities, we will have to get more people looking after the welfare of our citizens. As to whether that job can be done convincingly by the Police and Civil Defence alone, is not too clear to us.” On funding, he said: “when they (executive) are talking about funding, National Assembly was convinced that within the structure for the funding of the Police, Civil Defence, that was the same argument when the Civil Defence Bill was before the House, that it could not be funded, that they were divulging some of the powers of the Police to the Civil Defence, that it would never work and at the end of the day, all these were surmounted and now we have the Civil Defence that in some cases, some citizens have said, are more dependable than the conventional police. I don’t know it’s a value judgement that I’ve not gone into, so I can’t tell.
“But I know they are doing a good job, I see them everywhere I travel to and they have become a pride of the society. Now, the main consideration as regards the Peace Corps, all these considerations in terms of crises across communities, it was found out that if they had these, they’d be able to compliment the work of the civil defence and police and providing security. “And, as I said, the protection of security of and lives and property is the fi rst responsibility of government in guaranteeing the welfare of the citizens. So, we cannot overspend on the issue of protecting the lives and the properties of our citizens, we cannot.”
