Members of the House of Representatives on Wednesday sought a comprehensive action by governments at all levels to address the rising cases of insecurity in the country, emphasising their earlier position against negotiating with bandits.
Zonal caucus leaders and members took turn on the second day of the House debate on the security situation in the country to vent their anger and frustrations as Nigerians across the country are subjected to terror attack daily.
Chairman of the House Committee on Women Affairs, Kafilat Ogbara set the tone for the day when she said that the reality confronting the nation was not a distant episode in our national conversation.
She said, “It is a deep and bleeding wound in the lives of our children, our families and our communities. And I termed the Papiri and Kamba abductions as a national tragedy.
“We are facing severe insecurity crises with widespread kidnapping and banditry. When people come to communities to kill them, to traumatise them, this is nothing but terror. Let me be clear, these are not mere security failures. They are breaches of the most fundamental duties of the state, which is the security of lives and properties.
“When we have security issues, we need our governors to do more because the president cannot be everywhere. He cannot be in Sokoto, he cannot be in Zamfara, he cannot be in Ogun State. He cannot even be in Lagos State, his own state. We need our governors to do more and this is the right time for us as a house to legislate on the right legal framework on our state’s policy.
“As politicians, we say every politics is local. For me, I may not be a security expert, but I know that every security is local. We need a security situation where our security operators will be communicado, where Nigerians can call any security operative at any hour of the day and they are sure to get the right response.
“Where we have that, that is where we have the right policing. In normal climes, you find out that citizens police themselves. When you see something, you say something, you act and you do something. This is the only way we can have the right security network in this country.”
He commended the President for the empathy he has shown and for the release of the Kebbi girls saying “the brief relief felt by the families of those that escaped is overshadowed by the agony of those still waiting, waiting for a knock on the door, for a phone call, for any sign of hope”.
She asked, “We have seen the children where are the kidnappers? Nigerians are asking. We have seen the children, where are the kidnappers? We need to know.
“This crisis demands our urgent attention because children are used as deliberate targets. Schools that are once safe havens have become tragic targets. I think vulnerability for our women and children who face kidnapping, violence, exploitation, displacement and psychological trauma.
“Mothers and female educators bear emotional and economic burdens. Community disruption. And I must say that this trauma lasts a lifetime sometimes. We have to avoid this. Children who escape captivity or witness violence often experience long-time trauma, insomnia, anxiety, nightmare and withdrawal.
She recommended the establishment of a national safe schools protection framework, mandatory deployment of security teams to high-risk boarding schools and also reinforce dormitories, night surveillance, panic alert systems, invest in early warning infrastructure, cameras, sensors and secure communication links with law enforcement agencies.
Leader of the North West, Sada Soli said the current challenges are not just criminal, but structural, rooted in environmental stress, with governance and economic marginalisation, adding that tackling these threats demands a holistic strategy that combines security operations with social, economic and environmental interventions.
Soli said a purely military or kinetic response won’t be sufficient to address the issues in the Northwest, adding that long-term stability will require building trust in state institutions.
“We must build trust in our institutions, while making efforts to reform land and livestock governance, addressing climate response and pressure and ensuring that affected communities are meaningfully taken part in providing solution to our security threats.
He said, “Once the communities that are affected are not taken meaningfully in the course of providing solution, forget it, we will not get where we want to get there.
He identify major security threats bedevilling the Northwest to banditry and kidnapping. Farmer-herder, that is pastoralist conflict, then cattle rustling and organised crime.
He said, “The security challenges in the Northwest started through farmer-herder clashes, cattle rustling, which have become a more organised, organised then transmuted into a criminal enterprise. Rustlers operate from forested areas, e.g. Darjeel Rugu forest, which cut across Kaduna State, Katsina State, Zamfara State and Sokoto State.
“You can see how complex nature it is. So somebody can start, a criminal can start traversing from Kaduna State and he will end up in Sokoto State without being noticed because the forest is thick and they are connected. As well as the impact of Binin Gwari forest, which started from Kaduna and ended up in some part of Kebbi State.
“There is a limited trust in state mechanisms in many localities. There’s a limited trust in our communities, in state mechanisms in our localities. There is traditional conflict resolution frameworks.
“They have been weakened. The traditional conflict mechanism resolutions, they have been deeply and vastly weakened. And state capacity to enforce security or mediate is often very stretched, resulting to lack of local legitimacy.
“Some of our local authorities, they have lost their legitimacy as well as broken down social cohesion in communities. How do social cohesion is broken down in our communities? Because they have been displaced. Possible escalation, ethnic and religious distrust, displacements of feedback loop are all issues of concern if we want to address these issues.
On his part, Leader of the North East Caucus, Mukthar Betara said Borno state and the North East has remained the epicentre of the insurgency, terrorism, kidnapping and communal violence.
Betara advocated for adequate funding for the security agencies and the provision of adequate welfare package as a way of encouraging them.
He said ‘Nigerian security challenges may be vast, but they cannot be there with strategic planning, coordinated action, and awareness, political commitment, we can stop and spread violence, restore public confidence, stop spread of violence.
“This special session provides us with not just opportunity, but a responsibility to charge a bold new direction, sir. The Nigerian people are waiting. Communities across the Northeast, the nations are watching.
“History will remember us today. What we have chosen to do today in this chamber, let us rise for a moment together and help and secure the nation. That is our solution.’
