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Ndubuisi Orji, Abuja
The House of Representatives, yesterday, demanded the resignation of the service chiefs over the upsurge in insurgency.
This was sequel to the unanimous adoption of a motion by Mohammed Monguno (APC-Borno).
The House resolved that the leadership of the National Assembly should meet with President Buhari over the worsening security situation in the country. The Green Chamber also urged the Federal Government to embark on massive employment and training of new personnel for security agencies in the country.
Monguno, in his lead debate, said the upsurge of insurgency in the North-East constituted a threat to the territorial integrity of the country.
Contributing to the debate, lawmakers said the service chiefs have been deploying same strategies in the anti-terror since 2015, noting that they have outlived their usefulness, and should resign or be shown the way out by the president.
Chairman of the House Committee on Defence, Babajimi Benson, said: “The NSA is from Maiduguri, he can’t get to his village. The Chief of Army Staff is from Borno, he can’t go to his village. The Chief of Air Staff is from the North-East, he can’t go to his village.
“That speaks volumes of their inability to take us to the next level. But the decision lies with the Commander-in-Chief. I don’t know what he sees in the service chiefs that he is still keeping them.”
Ndudi Elumelu said there was need for government to declare a state of emergency in security and adequately equip the police and other security agencies to boost their capacity in fighting crime.
Ahmadu Jaha, who represents Chibok/Damboa/Gwoza Federal Constituency of Borno State, said contrary to the claims of the military, his constituents were still being attacked and displaced.
Earlier, Speaker Femi Gbajabiamila, welcoming the lawmakers from the Christmas break, expressed concerns over the upsurge in criminal activities across the country.
Gbajabiamila said the upsurge in crime manifested through the activities of bandits destroying communities, kidnappers operating for profit and insurgents seeking to remake the world in the image of a discredited theocracy.
He expressed dismay over the recent execution of a top official of of the Christian Association of Nigeria in Adamawa State, Mr. Lawan Adimi, as well as the killing of Mr Ropvil Dalep Daciya, a student from Plateau State who was abducted by suspected Boko Haram terrorists on his way back to school at the University of Maiduguri.
Gbajabiamila, while stating that the current security challenges confronting the country requires new approaches and novel ideas, stated that the recent establishment of the South West security network otherwise called Amotekun by governors in the region, as well as other local security arrangement across the country, were borne out of frustration.
“Recently, the governors of Lagos, Ogun, Osun, Ekiti, Oyo and Ondo states took action to implement a regional security network to support the efforts of the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) in preventing crime and protecting the lives and property of those our citizens who live, work and travel through these states. The establishment of Amptekun, as the network is called, has met with commentary from across the country, both for and against. Too often, it has seemed to me that lost in these interactions is the hard, brutal and unavoidable fact that Àmòtékùn and other such state or zonal interventions that already quietly exist in other parts of the country are a desperate response to the vile manifestations of insecurity that trouble the lives of citizens, depriving them of the peace and security that gives life meaning.
“ I, therefore, call on the Leader of the House of Representatives and the Minority Leader to take active steps to bring to the floor, appropriate amendments to the constitution that will ensure that these and other righteous interventions to protect the life and property of our citizens are firmly in compliance with the laws of the land,” he said.
