By Ezrel Tabiowo
Abuja
Following the intervention of the Senate in the Southern Kaduna killings which had claimed hundreds of lives recently, the upper chamber, yesterday, rejected an interim report, submitted by an ad-hoc committee on farmers, herders’ clashes in Southern Kaduna and in other parts of the country.
The committee, led by Senator Kabiru Gaya (APC, Kano), in its report, called on the Governor of Kaduna state, Nasir El-Rufai, to publish previous white paper reports on Southern Kaduna crisis.
The lawmaker alleged that 70 per cent of police officers posted to Southern Kaduna were indigenes, called on the Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Mr. Ibrahim Idris, to correct the imbalance.
Deputy President of the Senate, Ike Ekweremadu, who backed the position of senators, urged the Upper Chamber to reject the report.
According to him, the whistle blowing policy should be extended to the security community, by urging Nigerians to blow the lid on people harbouring dangerous arms.
He said: “I consider this issue to be very serious. We must accord it the seriousness it deserves. The committee has confirmed that the killings happened. The recommendations need to reflect more on the seriousness of this matter.
“I understand clearly that the chairman of the committee needs more time to do more work to show the whole world that this Senate is serious about this matter. Looking at the recommendations, they do not reflect the seriousness of the matter like I said.
“Today, we are talking about arms proliferation. We have a whistle blowing policy. We need to direct it more on those keeping those arms. We were told that the Nigerian Customs Service intercepted arms. Till this day, we have not been told who imported the arms.
“We cannot sit back and allow our women and children to be killed every day. Our people are being killed in Enugu, Kaduna, Zamfara and in other parts of the country. This matter is serious enough for the committee to go back and do more work.”
In his ruling, Saraki urged the committee to accommodate all the issues raised and come up a clean report.
“I think there are many other parts of the country we were hoping the committee will find out the situation there. These areas have not been covered. If it is the view of lawmakers that the report should be sent back and allow the committee to accommodate all the issues, we must do that.
“We need a more detailed recommendation that will address everything. The committee should address all the issues raised and ensure that they are accommodated,” he said.
