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Ndubuisi Orji, Abuja
Speaker House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, yesterday, met with service chiefs and heads of security agencies over security challenges in the country.
The meeting, which originally scheduled for last Friday, was rescheduled for yesterday, because of the absence of service chiefs in the first meeting, and had in attendance the Chief of Defence Staff, General Abayomi Olonisakin; Chief of Naval Staff,Vice Admiral Ibok Ekwe Ibas and Chief of Air Staff, Air Marshal Sadique Abubakar. Also present were the Director General, Department of State Services (DSS), Yusuf Bichi; and Comptroller General of the Nigeria Immigration Service, Muhammed Babandede.
Chief of Army Staff, Tukur Buratai and the Inspector General of Police, Mohammed Adamu were, however, absent. At the meeting were the Deputy Speaker of the House, Idris Wase, the minority leader, Ndudi Elumelu and chairmen of House committees oversighting security agencies.
Speaking before the meeting went into closed door, Gbajabiamila said the security parley was called for to engage the security chiefs on challenges faced in tackling insecuity and terrorism with the view to ascertaining how the parliament can support address the challenges.
The speaker noted that since the 2020 Appropriations Bill would be presented to the National Assembly in a fortnight, the meeting had become inevitable to address financial challenges in the fight against insecurity.
According to him, “Security is one of the major concerns of this government and we have an obligation to arrest the situation and do whatever we can.
“Like in every democracy, there is collaboration among arms of government; only when we collaborate that we get the required results.”
On his part, Olonisakin stated that the absence of the service chiefs for the meeting last Friday was not intended to slight the House.
The defense chief explained that their absence was as a result of other national engagements.
He said “I wish to put on record that contrary to insinuations, the absence of the service chiefs on Friday was not a deliberate act to disrespect the institution of the assembly.
