President MuhammaduBuhari has set up a committee to periodically review the security situation in the country. This decision to set up the committee was taken at a meeting held on Monday between President MuhammaduBuhari and the leadership of the National Assembly at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, disclosed this to the media after the meeting, saying that the committee “will periodically review the issue of security, maybe once a month or once in six weeks.”
Gbajabiamila said that the committee would “involve the two arms of government and the party.”
According to Gbajabiamila, President Buhari is greatly concerned about the security situation in Nigeria and intends to do something about the challenge.
“The question of security is uppermost in his mind and he opened up to us and you must understand that some communications are privileged, but suffice to say that the President is concerned and he intends to do something about our challenges,” he said.
Gbajabiamila said that though the generality of opinion is that the service chiefs should be fired, which was “evident in our debates in the House of Representatives and in the Senate, sometimes you don’t want a knee-jack reaction.
“Many of us identify that something drastic has to be done, there’s also the school of thought that says since we are talking about banditry, kidnapping and murders, what have the armed forces got to do with that, anywhere in the world?
“So the question then arises that if he changes the service chiefs, does that address the issues of kidnapping and banditry?
“The army, navy and air force are outfits set up to tackle external aggression. It is the police that is set up for internal security, such as we are all witnessing.
“That’s talking about service chiefs, has the Inspector-General of Police met up with his responsibilities?
“The question is if we now narrow it that to the Inspector General to Police, many will argue that he has done a very good job and many will argue with you that he’s hamstrung, straight-jacketed, there’s very little he can do in the face of no equipment, no funding and we explained to the president that we have to increase funding, we have to recruit more.”
Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, who also spoke to the media, said that was a need for government to provide interim measures to tackle the security challenge in the country.
“In the intermediate and the long term, we should be able to come up with some strategies, the road map to ensure that we secure the lives and properties of Nigerians.”
He said the meeting discussed everything that matters in security.
“We discussed everything that matters as far as the issue of security if this country is a concern.
“We believe that it is imperative that we are able to provide that necessary equipment and welfare for the armed forces of this country and the police, to ensure that they are able to operate and performed efficiently and effectively.”
Lawan said that President Buhari “was forthcoming, of course, as the leader of this country he is more worried than anybody else about the situation.
He said the National Assembly was on the same page with the president to do whatever it would take to ensure that the security agencies were able to perform better than they are doing now.