African parliamentarians have been charged to come up with relevant laws that will stem the menace of insecurity across the continent.
Former minister of National Planning and current Director General of the National Institute of Legislative and Democratic Studies (NILDS), Prof. Abubakar Sulaiman, made the call on Tuesday while playing host to a delegation from the Ethiopian Oromia Regional Parliament led by the Speaker, Seada Abdurahman.
Prof Suleiman noted that there is no country in Africa that is not experiencing insecurity in one form or the other.
“We are facing a lot of challenges bothering on terrorism; issues of economic growth and development; a lot of people are jobless and issues of unemployed youths, out-of-school children and starvation.
“Within the context of Afrocentric policy, the era of looking onto our colonial powers has gone.
“We must device African solution to African problems,” Sulaiman said.
He said that since legislators are closer to the people at the grassroots, it behoves them to find out the root cause of insecurity and take responsibility by drafting laws to address the menace.
“Issues of insecurity can be viewed from different perspectives, it has civil and military components. The civil component was the type experienced during Covid pandemic which claimed several lives while the military component is the type that brings about an upsurge in banditry, terrorism and kidnapping among others.”
Prof. Suleiman said that through technical assistance from NILDS, the National Assembly of Nigeria has come up with nine bills that seek to proffer solutions to the lingering insecurity in the country.
According to him, the bills include the Armed Forces harmonisation bill which seeks to provide synergy among the security operatives through information sharing to effectively tackle insecurity.
Other bills on insecurity that are currently before the National Assembly for passage include the Proliferation of Small Arms Bill; National Security and Civil Defence Bill; National Security and Intelligent Bill; Police Service Reform Bill among others.
The Director General of NILDS also took time to brief the visiting Ethiopian parliamentarians on the role of his institute to the legislature not only at National Assembly but States Assembly and in some African countries.
He, therefore, urged African Parliaments to establish an institution like NILDS to provide technical support for their legislature in the area of bills and motions drafting as well as oversight functions.
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In her remarks, the speaker of the Ethiopian Oromia Regional Parliament, Abdurahma, commended NILDS for the administrative support to the parliamentarians and the standing committees of the House.
Abdurahman who spoke through an interpreter said “the Ethiopian regional council is very grateful to the institute. We will work closely with NILDs and we will take the lesson learnt back to our country.”
She assured of strengthening bilateral-relationship between Ethiopia and Nigeria.
On his part, Mr Mamush Lellisa, Director of Capacity Building of the Ethiopian Regional Parliament said they were in Nigeria to garner experience from the legislative institution.
“We will use the experience gained to improve on our democratic practices,” he said.
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