Senate’s needless security summit

AS a  response to the widespread insecurity in the country, the Senate, last week, proposed a national security summit. The summit, it said, would find solutions to the killings, banditry, kidnappings and insurgency ravaging the country. The two-day summit, it said, would draw participation from different stakeholders, including heads of security agencies  and state governors. The Senate’s resolution followed a motion by Senator Jimoh Ibrahim (APC, Ondo-South) drawing attention to the daily loss of lives across the country. Reacting to the resolution, however, the Minister of Defence, Mohammed Badaru, maintained that while such gatherings could provide useful input, they could not be a substitute for well-thought-out military strategies.  He said: “When you hold a summit, you have people, they talk. We take what they expect, and we go back to design or renew our strategy.  Then, the Chief of Defence Staff gives operational orders based on the strategy they developed. So, what the National Assembly is trying to do, maybe, is to bring people together to discuss issues. I visited most of the past defense ministers. I visited most of the past service chiefs to discuss issues of security during their time and what we see today. And I’m sure the service chiefs also do the same. So, the summit can help, but the strategy is much more important.”

This, however, did not go down well with the Senate, which panned the minister during a subsequent plenary sitting. It warned the minister to stop speaking openly against the decisions of the National Assembly, as it could breed conflict between the legislative arm and the Presidency. Said Senate President Godswill Akpabio: “If the defence has any issue with any resolution of the Senate, it shouldn’t do so in the market. It should get in touch with the Senate president or the Senate elders. I think I’m speaking our mind. It should get in touch with us, not to go and speak in the open.” Strangely, following this declaration, the  minister capitulated, describing the proposed summit as “a timely initiative to tackle Nigeria’s growing security concerns”, saying that he would participate in the summit. Hear him: “When you hold a summit, you hear people speak, gather perspectives, and take those insights back to review and strengthen our strategy, which is translated into action. That’s how change happens. I commend the National Assembly’s efforts to bring stakeholders together. It is a commendable move towards inclusive policy-making. That talk must lead to tangible outcomes.”

To be sure, the proposed security summit and the arguments canvased for it have no basis in logic. But that is not even the most insidious aspect of the issue. The main point, and it is striking that the Senate completely ignored the issue, is that the lawmakers acted in a way that suggests complete abdication of governance responsibilities and total isolation from the yearnings and needs of the Nigerian populace, which is being decimated by terrorists of different hues on a daily basis. Everywhere you turn in the country, terrorists are having a field day slaughtering innocent Nigerians, razing and seizing their villages and ancestral homesteads. For instance, just hours after the Senate flayed the Defence Minister for his initial position, which he sadly jettisoned either because he lacked the courage of his convictions or because he placed partisan politicking above his primary mandate of security of life and property, nomadic terrorists staged bloody onslaughts across four local government areas in Benue State, killing at least 23 persons in a series of coordinated attacks.

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 In a regular pattern of horror, the wave of attacks forced many members of the affected communities to flee their communities, heading into uncertainty. Nine people were killed in Logo Government Area, eight in Ukum, and  three in each of Guma and Kwande local government areas. It is profoundly sad that rather than simply mandating the president and the service chiefs to do their jobs and save hapless citizens and their communities from the prospect of extermination, the Senate chose to hold a meaningless summit where its members and other invitees will pontificate on security issues while the people that need protection will keep getting killed. As the “experts” at the summit mount the rostrum, citing various statistics, hapless Nigerians will be in the terrible process of being gunned down! Now, the Senate has committees on security, specifically on the various arms of the security services. Is it that those committees have not been working? If they have been working, what did the Senate do with the various reports they submitted? Is it time to talk rather than take pragmatic steps to stop insecurity? If your house is on fire—and no one who claims sanity can claim that this metaphor does not apply to the communities plagued by terrorist attacks—do you hold talk shows? What will the national security summit really achieve? Why not galvanise the security agencies to do their jobs and stop the onslaught of criminals on law-abiding citizens and communities?

It is distressing that the Senate and the House of Representatives, while recognising the impracticality of Nigeria’s current centralised security network, promised state policing during the 9th National Assembly but failed to implement it. Time and again, the two chambers of the National Assembly throw the bait of state policing to Nigerians and received accolades from citizens sick and tired of the current iniquitous federal structure, then shelve the idea soon afterwards. The lawmakers calling for a security summit have access to the report of the 2014 National Conference which made far-reaching recommendations on how to turn the country around in all sectors, including the security sector, but they say nothing about bringing that report to life by way of resolutions or laws, only planning a talk-show at which security agencies will provide them with adequate security while the people on whose behalf they hold public office will keep getting mercilessly slaughtered by the same outlaws that they (lawmakers) will be talking about. In any case, the National Assembly has held such summits since the 7th Assembly, with the recommendations rarely implemented, a point referenced by Senators Enyinanya Abaribe, Adamu Aliero and Abdul Ningi, who advised the Senate against embarking on yet another jamboree. Why not do something noble by looking at the reports of various conferences in the past and passing resolutions on them?

We ask the lawmakers directly: if you were in the shoes of the masses, confronted with maniacal and genocidal criminals angling to end your life here and now, would you organise a talk-show or call for the neutralisation of your would-be killers? Nigerians are dying on a daily basis and it is time for the Senate to demonstrate that it truly cares about them. If service chiefs don’t know their jobs, it has a moral duty to speak out against them and ask the president to relieve them of their duties. The country does not need another jamboree. Nigerians are tired of meaningless talk.