SENATORS, on Wednesday, resolved to set aside the sum of N10 billion to tackle insecurity in Zamfara State following waves of killings and rising insecurity in the state.
The lawmakers, who approved the sum to be set aside through the 2019 budget, said that a committee should be set up to manage its implementation.
The decision to set aside the intervention fund was sequel to a motion moved by Senator Kabiru Marafa through Orders 42 and 52 of the Senate Standing Orders 2015 as amended.
Senator Marafa, in highlighting activities of bandits, kidnappers and cattle rustlers in the state, told the Senate that the crimes had been on the rise on a daily basis.
The lawmakers resolved to set aside N10 billion intervention fund in aid of the insecurity and humanitarian challenges in the troubled state.
The senators said that to manage the fund, the Federal Government could set up an ad hoc committee to be known as Presidential Initiative on Zamfara which would have a 10-year lifespan and coordinate programmes and activities aimed at addressing humanitarian crisis in the state.
While moving the motion, Senator Marafa alerted the chamber that the problem of insecurity in Zamfara State was deteriorating on weekly or even daily basis, while he called for urgent national action and from the parliament.
He said that heinous activities of different categories of mindless criminals or killers in the state like armed bandits, cattle rustlers, kidnappers were creating serious humanitarian crisis in the state that must be addressed very urgently.
He said: “Since 2011, as a result of the unabating activities of the criminals in the state, roughly estimated 11,000 males have been killed who left behind an average of 22,000 widows and by extension, 44,000 orphans.
“These figures are just by conservative estimates because the figures are far higher.
“The bandits, especially heavily-armed kidnappers, operate with little or no resistance in Gusau, the state capital, making less than 75 per cent of people in the state not to be sleeping in their houses.
“The situation has nothing to do with politics because my own blood sister was murdered in her matrimonial home in February this year and even two of my cousins outside the state capital a few weeks back.”
Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, who was the first to contribute, said that Senator Marafa should be commended for always bringing the deteriorating security situation in Zamfara State to the front burner of discourse in the Senate.
He said: “The primary purpose of government as clearly stated in Section (1b) of the 1999 Constitution as amended is all about security and welfare of citizens. Any government that cannot make provisions for these has no business in governance.
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“For government to tackle the security problem headlong, the abnormality of Nigeria being the only federation with centralised police must be addressed.
“It has been suggested and said in this hallowed chamber that long-lasting solutions to myriads of insecurity challenges in the land is creation of state police, the earlier we embrace it the better for the country.”
Also in his contributions, Senate Chief Whip, Olusola Adeyeye, said the problem of the country is the constitution itself, which with its provisions, puts on ground what he called an over-centralised federation or unitary system as against federal system of government.
According to him, as long as the problematic constitution is not amended by way of removing policing from exclusive list to concurrent list, to pave way for state police, criminality at local levels will continue unabated.
“How on earth would a supposedly federation have 68 items on its exclusive list and just 12 ambiguous and nebulous items on its concurrent list. Provisions of this constitution make mockery of Nigeria as a federation and the earlier it is addressed, the better because every crime is local and solution to it is local,” he said.
Other senators who spoke on the motion including Senate Leader, Senator Ahmad Lawan; Deputy Leader, Bala Ibn Na’Allah Shehu Sani; Mohammed Hassan and Emmanuel Bwacha all condemned the spate of insecurity in the land in their various contributions.
Senate President, Bukola Saraki, in his remarks stated that policing needed to be localised to ensure that all crimes are tackled from the local levels.
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