Kaduna Killings: Senate Summons New IGP, Urges Declaration Of State Of Emergency

The Nigerian Senate on Wednesday resolved to summon the acting Inspector General of Police over the country’s security situation.

The resolution followed a motion titled ‘‘Senseless killing of a Briton and the abduction of three others in a holiday resort in Kaduna State by armed bandits’’ which was moved by the Senator representing Kaduna Central, Shehu Sani.

Sani had sponsored the motion after some gunmen raided the Kajuru Castle holiday resort in Kajuru Local Government Area where they killed a British aid worker, Faye Mooney, and a Nigerian, Mr Mathew Oguche, while kidnapping three persons.

The motion, which was co-sponsored by over eighty senators, noted among others the ‘‘wave and spate of armed banditry and kidnapping in most parts of the country, from the north, south, east, and western part of the country without a formidable and technological approach of fighting heinous crime.’’

Seconding the motion, the Deputy Senate President, Dr Ike Ekweremadu, urged the Federal Government to ‘‘declare a national state of emergency to enable the government put in place measures to end this problem.”

Speaking in support of the motion, Senator Joshua Lidani, representing Gombe South constituency of Gombe State, said: “Nigeria is becoming a killing field and this will have an effect on investment and tourism. We need to do something drastic, something unusual that we have not done before.”

Ladani said: “We need to mobilize the military to those areas and we should not be shy of asking for help.”

Contributing to the motion, Senator Babba Ahmed Kaita said: “My heart and prayers goes out to the families of the bereaved. What have we done as Senators of the Federal Republic of Nigeria? We should marshal out a plan from the chambers of this Senate to secure this country.”

The Senate President, Dr Bukola Saraki, who presided over the plenary session, expressed concern of the security situation in the country.

Saraki said, “There are a lot of issues that we need to address because the way these series of killings are going on and that is why we brought it up today. In line with the last speaker, we must begin to look at the solutions.

“When we talk about the way forward, we need to be honest with ourselves. We need to talk as senators in this upper chamber because in addressing these issues we need to be frontal on what has led us to where we are today and we must proceed through our political parties…… platform and see it as a problem that all of us need to address.

“Where there is a fault, we must be bold enough to say where the fault is and where there are sanctions that need to be taken we must be bold as well to say so,” said the Senate President.

Saraki recalled how the immediate past Inspector General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, refused to honour several invitations to appear before the security problems facing the country.

“I mean, you have all been in this chamber for one year we could not even communicate, converse or engage with the Nigeria Police.

“You were all here when the Head of Police refused to even come before us. How can we work together to move things forward because at the end of the day, we must begin to sit down with those in charge and discuss what we need to do, how do we help you.

“Even if we want to recruit, we can’t do it from here, we need guidance, they need to tell us what we need to know,” said the Senate President.

Saraki decried the killing of the British expatriate, saying: “Here is a lady that use to work in Iraq and Kosovo, she didn’t die there until she came to Nigeria. That does not portray this country in a positive way at all.

“As the Deputy Senate President and Senator Lidani said, there are going to be questions from people coming to invest in a country like this.

“Today, Abuja- Kaduna road has been abandoned as I was told, everybody is going by train there. Nothing is happening to address that. If we want to politicise it we will not make a way forward.

“We need to decide whether we want to find a solution or whether we just want to play to the gallery. In the past, kidnappings use to be done in the cities now they are kidnapping villagers too, its a big problem,” the Senate President added.

In his contribution, Senator Emmanuel Bwacha asked the Senate to reconsider the calls for State Police as way to tackle the security challenges in the country.

“The long term effects will be catastrophic. I want to suggest that the issue of State Police be looked into; we need to create a synergy between the state police and vigilante and locals of these states. It will dramatically reduce the menace,” said Bwacha.

“We need massive military deployment to these flash points. We also need to come up with capital punishments for these crimes,” he said.

Responding, Saraki asked the Senate to, ”abide a prayer in line with some of the work we had done so far. If you remember, we had done a retreat, we had done a report, we had done second reading and a few recommendations.

“If you can recollect, we invited the Heads of the security agencies and directed them to submit to us what they need and there was no response till date.

“So, what I think is that we should take it up from here, we should not get discouraged. We should go back and review where we are and find a way for our Committees to reengage the Heads of our security agencies,” he said.

The Senate, therefore, resolved to among others to invite the acting Police IG to ”brief the Senate on the initiative put in place to curb the current security situation in the country.”

The Senate asked security authorities to intensify the search for the perpetrators of criminal activities in the country and bring them to book.

It also asked Federal Government to ”set up inter-agency task force to tackle cases of banditry and kidnapping in Kaduna, Katsina, Zamfara and Niger States.”

Part of the Senate’s resolution was for security agencies to give special security cover to foreign workers and tourists and deploy the use of drones and interceptors in tracking kidnappers asking for ransom.

The Senate also urged telecommunications companies in the country to provide security agencies with information in areas where there are kidnappings in the country.

It also resolved to send a delegation to the British Embassy and condole the British government.

The Senate asked the Senate Leader ensure that ”the Bills that we passed on the Police Reform and Trust Fund be sent to our counterparts in the house, so we can get concurrence and have these Bills sent to the President so that we can get assent as quick as possible.”

Saraki further expressed hope that the Senate will enjoy the cooperation that the it didn’t get from former IGP Idris from the new Acting Inspector General of Police, saying: ”the good actions we have taken on the issue of the Bills we have passed from Police Reform Act and Trust Fund……shows that we are ready to work very closely with them to see how they can be successful.”

”We hope that with this, we will begin to see improvement in the security situation in the country.” said the Senate President.