Senators today in plenary suggested various measures to address the current state of insecurity in the country following fresh herdsmen violence in Nasarawa state.
Senator Suleiman Adokwe (PDP, Nasarawa) drew the attention of the red chamber to ongoing crises in his Nasarawa South senatorial district that led to the death of 32 persons. According to him, the attacks continued unabated for four days “under the noses of security agencies”.
Adokwe stressed that the alleged apathy on the part of security agencies is leading to greater calls for self-defence as recently propounded by former Chief of Defence Staff, Gen. TY Danjuma (rtd).
Also aligning with Senator Adokwe, Senator James Manager (PDP, Delta) said the issue of self-defence is “a matter of natural instincts, defend yourself or they kill you.”
Furthermore, he boasted that Ijaw communities will defend and avenge any attack on their land but called for an implementation of the resolutions of the Senate’s Security Summit held in February as a means of bringing lasting peace to the country.
On his part, Senator Solomon Olamilekan (APC, Lagos) called for the sack all the service chiefs as they have run out of ideas, stressing that the President is “in need of fresh ideas” to combat the insecurity situation.
“I think the President needs fresh ideas and fresh men, all the service chiefs and head of security agencies should be sacked immediately, there are no two ways about this.
“I believe they have exhausted all the ideas deposited in them over the years as security experts. This current head of security agencies cannot give him the fresh ideas, they have to go in order to put an end to what is happening,” he said.
Senator Dino Melaye (APC, Kogi) in his contribution added another dimension to the discussion by saying that Nigeria should call for international help “before it is too late,” an idea the presiding officer and Deputy Senate president, Ike Ekweremadu agreed with.
According to Ekweremadu, “The time has come for us to seek help from other countries as some of us have suggested here. We should not be ashamed to ask for help.
“The President met with the UK Prime Minister and she was of the opinion that Britain would help us security wise, America is also offering to help. We should not be reluctant to come out openly as say we need help, because what we have now is a global village.”
He continued: “We cannot be asking people to come to Nigeria and invest their monies here, they will not! Rather, let us ask them to come and help us to solve our security problem. If we solve our security problem, they will come here, with nobody asking them to come. I think the first thing to do is to resolve the issue, and it is something we all need to do, and do it fast.”
The Senate subsequently observed a minute silence in honour of those who lost their lives in the crises while calling on the President to direct the armed forces and the police to stop the carnage and return normalcy to troubled areas.
In addition, the Senate mandated its Ad-hoc Committee on security to investigate the incident in Nassarawa .