From Fred Itua, Fred Ezeh, Abuja, Jude Chinedu, Enugu and Femi Folaranmi, Yenagoa

There was anger on the floor of the Senate, yesterday, over President Muhammadu Buhari’s refusal to sack service chiefs following their failure to checkmate the growing insecurity across the coutry.

The upper legislative chamber, which last week distanced itself from a summon extended to President Buhari to appear before a joint session of the National Assembly and brief lawmakers on the rising insecurity, lamented that bandits now freely roam the streets in many northern states.

The lawmakers threatened to adopt stringent measures  if nothing was urgently done to address the situation.

Matthew Urhoghide from Edo South said they should activate Section 143 of the 1999 Constitution to send a strong signal to Buhari. The section deals with the process of removal and impeachment of the president.

Urhoghide said the intention of activating the section is not to impeach the president but to send a strong signal. He said one-third of senators should collate their signatures and send to Buhari to implement key resolutions passed by the Red Chamber.

Former Minority Leader of the Senate, Biodun Olujimi, urged his colleagues to suspend the consideration of the 2021 budget until resolutions passed by them were implemented.

Former leader of the Senate, Mohammed Ali Ndume, said the Senate has constitutional powers to take certain actions and noted that it was time to consider those available powers in effecting the needed changes.

Ndume told Senate President, Ahmad Lawan: “We understand your position and your predicament. If you can’t do it, let us do it. Enough is enough. The Constitution is clear. It didn’t limit what we can do. We are waiting for you to lead. We need to sit down and talk to ourselves.”

Senate spokesman, Ajibola Bashiru, who submitted that Nigeria has become a failed state said major constitutional amendments should be made to empower the National Assembly to have a say in the management of security.

“Our country is becoming a failed State. Are we totally helpless? No. We must rise above the fear of today or privileges we may not get. We must tell Buhari that he’s failing. Even at the level of the National Assembly, we can do something.”

Condemning the abduction of over 300 students at a boys’ school in Kankara, Katsina State, the Senate said government has failed in protecting lives and property, which it said is its primary responsibility.

Senate Minority Leader, Enyinnaya Abaribe, urged the president to take the country back.

“Mr. President, take back our country,” Abaribe stated.

James Manager added: “We’re tired. I may walk out one day. We just come here and talk. It’s like a talk show. Nobody is listening.”

In his contribution, Gabriel Suswam said: “We are pretending to be representing the people. We are sounding like a broken record. The last time, they said the president should come and address the country, some people told him not to come.We need to take desperate action so that Nigerians will know that we are here. Most of us are getting tired. Some people are collecting money and building big houses in Abuja. Lawan, you must take the bull by the horn.”

At the end of the long debate, Senate rejected moves to invite service chiefs, Director-General of Department of State Service, Inspector-General of Police, among others.

Minister of Defence was part of those that ought to have been invited.

Senate also rejected moves to set up an ad-hoc committee to work out a new security architecture or pass a vote of no confidence in Service Chiefs.

Lawan said: “There is nothing more important than securing the lives of citizens. That’s one major responsibility. We are handicapped. The Constitution restricts us. We can do what the Constitution provides. We will keep talking.”

APC:  Security agencies committed

The All Progressives Congress (APC) has said security agencies have the will, commitment and training to tackle insecurity in the country.

Governor Mai Mala Buni of Yobe and Chairman, APC Caretaker and Extra-Ordinary Convention Planning Committee said this in a statement in Abuja.

He described as sad the abduction of Kankara students.

He, however, said as President Buhari’s administration work harder to improve the security situation, there was need for security agencies to dig deeper.

“Security agencies should do better by ensuring that our students can go to school safely and learn across the country.

“They should therefore demonstrate this commitment by more robustly going after criminals and denying them the space to perpetrate crime,” he said.

Buni assured Nigerians that the APC would continue to work with the Federal Government, security agencies and other stakeholders to address and improve the country’s security situation.

Regardless, the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT) has threatened to down tools to register its discontent with the poor security situations in schools, and to also reawaken the consciousness of the Federal Government to the poor security situation in schools.

NUT Secretary General, Dr. Mike Ene, in a statement in Abuja said the decision has become necessary following unending threat to the lives of school children and their teachers.

The union challenged government to rise to the challenges and take up its responsibility to guarantee and execute the general principle and commitment of providing adequate security to all educational institutions and the nation at large. 

Service chiefs’ve outlived their usefulness – Shettima

Former governor of Borno State, Kashim Shettima, has renewed call on President Buhari to sack service chiefs, saying they have outlived their usefulness.

The senator representing Borno central said the successes recorded by the administration in the fight against Boko Haram have been overshadowed by the worsening security situation in the North East.

Shettima, who spoke on an Arise television programme, said the service chiefs have done their best, but “their best is no longer enough,” arguing that “justice, equity and fairness, even common sense demand that these service chiefs should go.”

He said: “In all fairness to Muhammadu Buhari, we are not questioning him, we are not questioning his commitment to the cause of our people, we are not questioning his passion for restoring peace in the North East. We respect him. We love him. But don’t deify him because deification is [for] God. Buhari is not God. If there are things that need to be corrected, we are going to point it out to him and equivocally and unambiguously, but without playing to the gallery.

“There’s been some improvement in the security landscape in the state (Borno), especially, in the first two years of the Buhari administration; but since then, the security situation has been deteriorating and it’s high time federal authorities should fine-tune the security architecture not only in the north-east sub-region, but across the whole federation.

“The current crop of service chiefs have outlived their usefulness, it’s high time President Buhari got rid of them.”

Buhari not acting like General -PFN

The Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN) has said the rising spate of insecurity and bloodletting did not speak well of President Buhari as a retired general and ex-combatant.

Speaking through its chairman in Enugu State, Bishop Godwin Madu, it called on northern governors to rise and protect Christians and their places of worship.

“The South East governors have done everything to be at peace with Moslems in the East by protecting them, caring for them and giving them an enabling environment to do their normal business, but not so in the North for Christians,” Madu noted.

He also called on the law enforcement agents whose primary responsibility is to protect life and property to rise and do their job in the nation.

“At no time has any church been assisted to rebuild after destruction, but not so in the East. If anything happens to any mosque or Moslem in the East, the governors will immediately intervene and compensation paid, mosque rebuilt; why is it that such is not done in the North?” he queried.

He called on the Federal Government to rescue the kidnapped Kankara students without delay, stating that “this is not good in a country where the president is an ex-military head of state and ex-combatant soldier. How will the whole world see Nigeria and how can over 400 boys be kidnapped from one school in a day and no trace or interception, so far, with millions of road blocks by the soldiers and police?

“Almost all the security agencies in Nigeria mount road blocks, yet, such atrocity was done and they have not traced where they are kept.”