Insecurity: Senate President backs call for sack of Service Chiefs

The Senate has joined their colleagues in the call for the sack of Service Chiefs.

The House of Representatives had in its resolution after its debate on security challenges at the plenary last month, demanded the removal of the Service Chiefs.

At Senate plenary on Thursday, President of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan, had in veiled reference said appointees of government who failed to meet up on their job targets should be relieved of such appointments.

He said: ”Time has come for us to ensure that governance is done as if it is business. If you employ someone, give that person a target. He accepts it on the basis of the fact that he believes he can meet the target and if he doesn’t meet the target? There is no explanation or cogent reasons for why he fails, he should go!”

The President of the Senate insisted that it was time to measure the performance of appointees in line with targets.

His remarks were sequel to a motion by the Senator representing Borno Central, Kashim Shettima seeking for the intervention of the Senate to mitigate the misery of survivors of banditry and insurgency in the Northeast.

President of the Senate hinted his colleagues that the Senate was prepared to accommodate a supplementary budget to fund training institutions for the Police to meet up with challenges of internal security.

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He noted that the challenge of insecurity has become a daily menace and all hands must be on deck to ameliorate it.

He further hinted that the Red Chamber has reached out to the nation’s reserve forces comprising of security men in retirement for their input.

”Today, we all recall that we have a 17 man committee to work on the security architecture, headed by the Leader of the Senate, that committee is working round the clock.

”There is no way we can do this alone. We have to work with the executive arm of government and indeed with other stakeholders but on this, I want to assure all of us here, that we are on the same page with the executive arm of government, everybody is worried.

“At this point, I believe that we all agree that the security architecture as presently constituted and designed is simply not giving us the outcome that we want or that we need.

“Therefore going forward we have to find a better, structured architecture for our security to provide the needed service we need for the safety of persons and property.

”Why shouldn’t we have an active and better equipped mobile police?

” The concept of mobile policing was designed as an outfit between the regular policing and the military. The mobile police have almost vanished. The military is doing what it was not supposed to do, in many parts of the country

“In times like this, leaders must come together irrespective of our political platforms. As leaders we are challenged today in this country, it does not matter whether you are PDP or APC or any other party. Or even if you do not believe in any political party you are challenged.

“Let me advise us that no amount of investment should be too much on the people that we represent. So, even if it is through a supplementary budget we should have one. The training institutions of the police should make sure that there is proper training for them, therefore, I am sure that we are going to have a very fruitful engagement and something that will help us to curb the current insecurity that we face.”

In his contribution, Senator Gabriel Suswam, (Benue Northeast) called for firm measures to save the nation from rampaging insurgents as he noted that those who should take decisive actions have become almost complacent in their attitude.

”When you want to hold the bull, you hold it by the horn but because consistently, we have refused to hold the hull by the horn, we would continue to have this problem.

“From the inception of this Ninth Assembly, what has preoccupied us here is the issue of security that over time required us to approach this issue differently and call a spade a spade.

“It is not just us, we need the buy-in of all other arms of government, we can talk and articulate the issues as they are, as we see them and based on how we relate with our people if there is no strong synergy and or cooperation all we do here would remain mere talking.

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“We must move beyond talking on the floor here every day on massive killings of our people. We know exactly where these people are, they go on trucks. People who come in trucks cannot be invisible. They come in trucks and are well armed.”

Ibrahim Hadeja, Jigawa (North East) state said it was important to redirect the security towards the intelligence gathering to thwart any such plan by the insurgents as have been witnessed in other climes countering terrorism.

“Instead of using intelligence gathering to nip the security situation in the bud, it seems to be that it is the insurgents that are taking advantage of these lapses in our security to plan and execute an attack and go back at will.

“We need to change our focus on security, we are being reactive. Every day whether it is kidnapping or terrorist attacks, we only move and make noise when they have happened. In most countries, when this happens they take care of 20,30 or more of these things without anybody knowing about it in the country.

”If security approach is focused on intelligence gathering, knowledge-driven security apparatus will save lives. Some times, they stop these security threats at source even outside the country of origin. Why can’t we do what is needed to track and stem these things?”