Sunday Aborisade
The leadership of the Senate met with the heads of military and security agencies at the Senate wing of the National Assembly on Wednesday behind closed doors.
Those in attendance were, the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), Lucky Irabor; Chief of Army Staff (CAS), Lt. Gen. Farouk Yahaya; Chief of Naval Staff (CNS)), Rear Admiral Awwal Gambo, and Chief Air Staff (CAS), Air Marshal Oladayo Amao.
The Inspector General of Police (IG), Usman Alkali Baba; the Director General of the State Security Services, Mr. Yusuf Magaji Bichi; the Commandant General of the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), Dr. Ahmed Abubakar Audi; and the Director General of National Intelligence Agency (NIA), Ahmed Rufai Abubakar, were also at the meeting.
The National Security Adviser Babagana Monguno was said to be attending the weekly Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting when the closed-door session held at the Senate.
Senate President Ahmad Lawan said the meeting was at the instance of the body of the principal officers.
He said the Senate had been meeting with the security agencies and had been partnering with the executive on security since President Muhammadu Buhari was elected.
He said no administration had invested heavily on security than the Buhari administration going by the approvals granted the military’s request for more funding.
He said the various committees of the Senate had also been doing their jobs on the issue.
Lawan added that the Senate had hoped that the security and economic situations of the country would have been greatly improved upon before now going by the nation’s investment on the military.
He however noted that whatever resources the country had invested on the military could never be enough.
He said: “The current situation is frightening because there is no where to hide or go.
“We have to review what we have to do. Most of our people are in the rurals and bandits had taken over.
“We need you to secure our rural areas and the ungoverned spaces. This is affecting food supply. It had affected foreign direct investment. Oil theft is on the commercial quantity.
“Our prayers is to see dramatic changes from today.”
The CDS in his response, described the parley as an in-house discussion based on an issue that concerns Nigerians.
“It must be seen as a national importance. Quite a lot had been done, while a lot is being done to address the insecurity situation in the country,” he added.
The meeting is still ongoing as of the time of filing this report.
Details later…
