Abdulrazaq Mungadi, Gombe
The National Assembly has urged the Federal Governments to consider more strengthening of the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) to better respond to issues the internal security breach in the country.
The call was made by the chairman of the House Committee on the Army, Mr Abdulrazaq Namdas, who equally enjoins State Governments across the country to invest more in preventing clashes and security breaches.
He said going by the security challenges in the country the Nigeria Army is already overstretched with its hand filled to capacity. “Let’s not reduce the Nigeria Army from doing police duties, because some communal clashes are issues that are solely meant for the police to address. It is only when we have the likes of State Governments taking proactive measures to reduce crisis.
Namdas who was in Gombe along with other members of the house committee on Army also stated that, as of the time of the visit to Gombe on an oversight function, Nigeria Army (NA) has its presence in 34 out of the 36 states of the country handling one security issue or the other. He added that some of the challenges being maned by the army is issued meant for the police force.
“Because some communal clashes are issues that are solely meant for the police, even kidnapping is for police, farmer and herders clashes are meant for the police. But because these days they come so armed that sometimes the police cannot contain that the Nigeria army comes in, like in the issue of armed banditry, cattle rustling, pipeline vandalization or Boko Haram and others,” Namdas stated shortly after meeting the deputy governor of Gombe State.
While urging the federal government to do the needful in training and equipping the police the chairman further disclosed that: “From the little, we have gone round and see, the NA is prepared and ready to face the challenges ahead given the necessary cooperation from both the Federal Government, states and others.”
He lamented what he called the lack of adequate funding being faced by the Army, he said the budgetary allocation for the Army is grossly inadequate for the type of duties that the Army is undertaking.
“Everybody knows that the constitutional role of the Army is to protect the territorial integrity, of course, once there are internal security issues that are far beyond the capacity of police, the DSS and other security agencies, the president has the constitutional backing to invite the army to come in,” He said while arguing that the army can only succeed if they are properly funded.