Senate President Godswill Akpabio on Thursday, March 6, said that insecurity in the country has drastically abated since President Bola Tinubu assumed office.
Akpabio spoke while contributing to the debate on a motion on the killing of 50 persons by suspected terrorists masquerading as herdsmen and increasing insecurity in Kwande, Ukum, Logo, and Katsina-Ala local government areas of the Benue State.
He however said that attacks being recorded are an aberration and no longer on the scale they used to be.
The motion was sponsored by Senator Emmanuel Udende (APC-Benue North East).
Akpabio said: “The primary responsibility of the state government is to use the security vote to ensure that the security of lives and properties in Benue state is protected.
“The first line of thought is the government of Benue as Senator Udende brought, we have not heard any comments from the government of Benue.
“If 50 people have been killed and communities have been attacked, we will expect that the state government will marshal out plans with the immediate security operatives within the affected state and see what they can do before bringing it to the President.
“And I want to assure you that President Bola Tinubu, though he has not stayed long in office, is supportive of the activities of the Armed Forces, and by the time the Senate meets with him in conjunction with the House of Representatives, I believe that the resolutions that we come out will benefit the entire country.
“It is a fact that since his assumption of duties, insecurity has abated, and major attacks are no longer taking place, but this one is just an aberration, and it will be brought to an end.
“I assure the good people of the areas affected that this matter is now on the floor of the Senate and we are taking serious actions with the presidency to ensure that normalcy is restored to the areas and the victims are also taken care of.”
In its resolutions, the Senate observed a minute silence in honour of those recently killed in Benue State and urged the Service Chiefs, Inspector General of Police, and other security agencies to, as a matter of urgency, deploy security personnel to address the continuing and ongoing attacks by armed terrorists in parts of Benue state.
The Red Chamber also resolved to put together all resolutions on incessant killings across Nigeria for onward presentation to the executive arm of government for action.
Udende in his lead debate expressed sadness that no fewer than 50 persons have been killed in fresh attacks on several communities in Kwande, Ukum, Logo and Katsina-Ala Local Government Areas of Benue state by terrorist parading as herdsmen.
He added: “Further aware that the affected communities some of which were attacked as recently as yesterday 5th March 2024 include Tyuluv, Borikyo, Kundav, Ugbaam, Uyam, Udedeku, Yaaiwa, Nyihemba, Tomatar, Menakwagh, Yiase and Agura all in the Benue North East Senatorial district of Benue State;
“Saddened that residents of the villages and communities now find themselves targeted on a daily basis by heavily armed terrorist herdsmen, and the toll continues to be staggering as they bear the brunt, with reports of marauders butchering several villagers, leaving many homes completely burnt down and numerous residents still missing while the perpetrators, however, remain elusive and have not been apprehended;
“Further saddened that this pathetic situation and development has inflicted untold hardship on women, children, and the elderly, who are trekking long distances in search of a safe haven and awaiting the intervention of security operatives;
“Concerned that this situation, in addition to the loss of lives and property, has already impacted negatively on the economic lives of the people and the resultant effect of shortage of farm produce is one of the reasons for the astronomical rise in the prices of agricultural produce and inflation in the country;
“Further concerned that despite the public outcry and previous resolutions of the National Assembly as regards the criminal activities of these terrorists parading as herdsmen, there seems to be no visible action on the part of the government to curtail, abate or totally stop the criminal activities of these criminal elements;
“Convinced that the utmost concern of and the purpose of government is the security and safety of lives and properties in line with Section 14 (2) b of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended) and there is need to act urgently.”
Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe (APGA – Abia South), in his contribution, observed that nothing has changed since the Senate had over 10 hours of meeting with the Service Chiefs recently.
The President of the 9th Senate and chairman of the Senate Committee on Defence, Senator Ahmed Lawan (APC- Yobe North), recalled that one of the resolutions in the series of meetings that they undertook was for the leadership of the Senate to meet the president because they thought that the President, Commander-in-Chief, needed to know the lawmakers’ perspective and understanding of the issues on the insecurity in the country.
Lawan said: “Defence-related committees will continue to do their oversight. But one thing is very clear, this Senate, indeed, the National Assembly, since I know it has always given our Defence and security outfits a lot of attention and resources because we believe that within the constraints of our resources, we must do something to improve on funding. That is not to say we are solving the problem because of giving more resources.
“We need to insist on value for money. We give more resources, we want to see a better security environment, otherwise, when we have no KPIs, the resources may simply be filtered away.
“I believe that going forward, we should continue without oversight, but our services in the Armed Forces and other security agencies must always account for the resources we give them.
“The 8th Senate where I was the Senate Leader, and the 9th Senate where I was the Senate President both had national summits on security and we have voluminous, very rich reports, which we forwarded to the presidency at that time and we had series of engagement at leadership level.
“I believe we should go back, and look at those reports. Our leadership should engage Mr. President and come up with resolutions that we passed here in this Senate to say this is the way we feel.
“Of course, some of our citizens will say they want to defend themselves, but what is the purpose of government? It means we shy away from our responsibilities because the most important purpose of any government is security. Even welfare is second.
“So, we need to insist on getting better outcomes from our security agencies. I believe that every one of us here, whether affected now or not, has experiences of insecurity and should insist on getting improvement.
“The constitutional amendment is coming. I don’t know what we can do better, but the security architecture in Nigeria today has failed woefully. I have said this many times even in the previous assemblies that this thing is not working. We have to find something that works”.
Senate Chief Whip, Ali Ndume said: “This issue of security, we can’t continue to come here every day or at least every week to observe one-minute silence. Then next week we have something like that or more than that; then you say you condemn, we observe one-minute silence.”
He said the leadership of both chambers of the National Assembly “on behalf of our colleagues, need to sit down with the President who is the Commander-in-Chief. Our security has the capacity. All they need, as I said, is training, equipment, and motivation (TEM).”
