Members of the House of Representatives, at the plenary, on Wednesday, called on President Muhammadu Buhari to take every measure to save Nigerians from the present precarious security situation.
The lawmakers gave the charge sequel to the adoption of a motion of urgent national importance sponsored by Hon Abdullahi Salame on the need to set up a National Task Force to address prevalent insecurity in Nigeria.
In his lead debate, Hon. Salame urged Mr President as a matter of urgency to set up a National Task Force on national insecurity to specifically address rampant cases of banditry, insurgency and kidnapping.
He also prayed that the House will urge Mr President to direct the National Task Force to ensure maximum synergy collaboration and coordination among all relevant security intelligence and enforcement institutions in ensuring a collective fight against kidnapping, banditry of insurgency in Nigeria.
While venting his view, Deputy Minority Leader, Hon Toby Okechukwu said: “We do not want to have strong Mr President. Mr President can define the scope of work, set up the appropriate structure to deal with it. if it is synergy he can coerce them to synergise.
Speaking earlier, former Chairman, House Committee on Public Petitions, Hon Uzoma Nkem-Abonta said while the objectives of the motion were good, creating more security outfit is unnecessary and will cause more problem.
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On his part, the Deputy Speaker, Hon Idris Wase who observed that any attempt to usurp the powers conferred on the office of the Security Chiefs must come through Constitution amendment rather than a motion, however stressed the need to hold all the Service Chiefs accountable for their actions and inactions in office.
According to him, in the bid to solve all the security problems across the six geopolitical zones of the country, there exist various operational setups have been assigned, such as Operation Crocodile.
He said: “We are trying to collapse agencies and today we are asking for Special Task Force. Even if you want to achieve that it can’t come through motion, it has to come through bill.
“The institutions of security are established either by the constitution and they have their respective role. I will remind colleagues that section three of the constitution is very clear.
“Any motion, bill that is inconsistent with the provision of the constitution to the extent of the inconsistency is null and void. We cannot come and take away the powers of our security agencies as enshrined in our constitution through motion; it cannot work.”
The Deputy Speaker who narrated how an informant of bandits who was arrested in his constituency said: “I mentioned to my brother yesterday, one of the informants was arrested in my village he refused to divulge information he said he rather die – to the point of death and refused to mention their location.”
Also, Hon. Victor Mela said the sponsor should rather call for revamping of the security architecture, rather than creation of another security outfit.
Amending the motion, the Deputy Minority Leader Hon. Toby Okechukwu said: “We can’t be talking about lack of synergy and creating more security agencies. We should call on the President to do his job and save Nigeria from the precarious security situation.”
Though the Speaker Hon Femi Gbajabiamila didn’t agree with the tone of Okechukwu’s amendment, he however put it to a voice vote and the majority of the lawmakers supported it and it was adopted.
While expressing his view on the motion, Hon Gbajabiamila said: “I like the fact that we are having a robust debate on this because it’s a security matter. So everybody is interested.”
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