The President of the Senate Mr Ahmed Lawan said Sunday that the National Assembly is fully in support of President Muhammadu Buhari’s matching order to heads of security agencies in the country to put in their best or be sacked.
Speaking to State House correspondents after a closed door meeting with the President at the Presidential Villa in Abuja, Lawan said the position of National Assembly members is that the security chiefs should tackle the issue of insecurity in the country or be shown the way out.
He said the National Assembly was ready to consider a supplementary budget to provide more resources for security agencies to enable them recruit more personnel to boost their capacity to tackle the challenges of insurgency, banditry and other crimes in the country.
“You know the country is facing very deep and serious security challenges and I have come to discuss with Mr. President what we discussed previously that we should do whatever it takes to improve the security situation in the country.
“And we believe that the senate and indeed the National Assembly is positively disposed to receiving even a supplementary budget purposely to address the fundamental needs of the security agencies of our country. So that we are able to empower them, enable them to fight Boko Haram in the North East, banditry and other security challenges across the country.
“Secondly, in the senate, we believe we need to provide more resources for recruitment by the security agencies Army, the Navy, Air Force, Police, immigration, the paramilitary generally. We need to have more manpower or personnel and this is not something you get on a platter of gold. Whoever wants to make an omelette will break an egg.
“Section 14 subsection 2b of the Constitution of the Federal Republic Nigeria is very categorical and crystal clear, that the purpose of government shall be to provide for security and welfare of the people. Therefore, we must, we have no luxury of any option other than to address the security challenges more than any other thing.
“We provided N500 billion intervention for COVID-19 for the revised budget, and various agencies, the CBN, the NNPC and the IOCs provided for palliatives and some kind of interventions for the COVID-19 challenge.
“I think we must tell ourselves that the security situation in the country, especially in the northern part of the country, requires that we give much more resources to the security agencies. And those who are heading these agencies, especially the service chiefs, must sit up, in fact we must have milestones and timelines on how we are going to deal with this, we can’t just go on without any time frame for dealing with these issues.
“If after we provide some support and someone is found short of expectations, he should be shown the way out if he refuses to go. Because the lives of Nigerians are so precious and therefore must be more important than any other considerations or sentiments. I believe that today, the most essential thing in government is to address the security challenges,” he said.
