NATIONAL: Senate urges Buhari to fire service chiefs over insecurity

THE Senate has recommended that President Buhari remove the Service Chiefs and replace them with people with fresh ideas and solutions.

The lawmakers are also asking President Buhari to restructure and rejig the entire security architecture and investigate allegations of widespread corruption and leakages within the security architecture.

At today’s plenary, the lawmakers had a debate on the state of security in the country and the recent slaughter of 43 rice farmers in Borno State.

The Upper Chamber also recommended the recruitment of 10,000 civilian JTF to complement the efforts of the armed forces and explore a multilateral partnership with Niger, Chad, and Cameroon.

Former governor of Borno State, Senator Kashim Shettima had moved the motion that the service chiefs should be removed and replaced with new ones to tackle the growing insecurity in the country.

Shettima stressed that any government that cannot protect the lives of its citizens has lost any iota of legitimacy.

The lawmaker also claimed that 67 farmers were killed in the Borno attack.

The resolutions of the Senate are as follows: “Urge the President of Federal Republic of Nigeria to immediately initiate the transitionary process of phasing out the current over-stayed security chiefs and replacing them with new ones with new ideas and solutions;
“Urge the President to take immediate steps to restructure, remodel and revamp the country’s entire security architecture and provide enough state-of-the-art weapons and equipment to effectively combat the belligerent power of the insurgents;
“Urge the President to immediately initiate probe into widespread allegations of corruption and leakages within the security structure and put mechanisms in place to foster transparency and ensure all resources meant and deployed for security are actually spent on the needs on ground;
“Impress on the Federal Government to aggressively explore multilateral and bilateral options of partnership with the neighboring nations of Chad, Niger and Cameroon towards reviving and strengthening the Multinational Joint Task Force and finding a lasting solution to the insurgency to the scourge of insurgency in the Lake Chad region;
“Impress on the Federal Government as a matter of urgency, recruit at least 10,000 civilian JTF, versatile with the local terrain in Borno as Agro-Rangers under the aegis of the NCDSC to complement the efforts of the Nigerian Armed forces; and
“Direct NEMA, NEDC and Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs to compensate the families of the 67 that were killed in this incident, and provide succor and psychological support to the bereaved families;
“Impress on the Federal Government to provide proper welfare for security personnel fighting in the frontlines and give prime attention to the compensation and welfare of fallen soldiers as that would boost the soldiers morale and aid their concentration; “Finally, as a way of proffering long term solution to Nigeria’s existential security challenges, the Federal and States Government must adequately address all immediate and remote causes of insecurity in the nation”.