The House of Representatives on Wednesday lamented the increasing attacks on some targets in the North East, accusing neighbouring countries of sponsoring the sect and other affiliated insurgent groups. The Chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Defence, Babajimi Benson, who stated this while responding to questions from Journalists on the outcome of the closed-door meeting they had with the Service Chiefs, revealed that there is a possibility of foreign powers arming the insurgents in the Northeast.
Mr Benson, the Charman House Joint committee on Navy, Army, Defence, Police Affairs and Air Force had a meeting with the head of the military at the National Assembly Abuja.
The lawmaker from Lagos State in his response to a possibility of external support said “the allegation that foreign powers were arming the insurgents in a bid to destabilise the country were discussed in the closed meeting. Yes, like I said, that is part of the things we discussed. There could be some truth in that.”
“Military issues are not things we should discuss in public but they raised a lot of issues that we must all sit down as Nigerians and discuss.
“One of them is that there is probably an international dimension to what we see. There is ISIS, there is ISWAP. These are things that we need to discuss in a very classified manner.” He said.
Dailypost recalls that the meeting took place barely a week after the House asked President Muhammadu Buhari to sack the service chiefs.
The lawmaker also spoke about the call for the sack of the Military Chiefs, saying that “It is not a U-turn but the most important thing that Nigerians want is the security of their lives and for their properties to be protected.”
