The Senate yesterday joined the legions of Nigerians that have called for the sacking of the following the spate of killings by Fulani militia or herdsmen across the country.
The upper chamber vehemently expressed frustration at the government ineptitude at stop the killings and charged President Muhammadu Buhari to immediately dismiss the heads of security agencies as well as the service chiefs.
The long debate on the issue at the Senate yesterday followed the renewed killings in Nasarawa State by herdsmen and criminal militia groups. The past few weeks have saw killings in Benue, Taraba and Plateau among others by herdsmen.
The Senate, after adopting a motion by Suleiman Adokwe (PDP, Nasarawa State), also asked Buhari to seek immediate help from the international community in curbing security problems in Nigeria.
“The nation should do away with unproductive tenure elongation in areas where fresh ideas are needed. We know the way the military organization operates. Those with fresh ideas dare not come out against their superiors or else they risk premature retirement from service. So the current service chiefs should go to allow officers with fresh ideas address our alarming security issues,” said Solomon Adeola Olamilekan (APC, Lagos State).
The mover of the motion Senator Adokwe said: “Throughout the weekend and up to the moment that I am speaking, herdsmen have unleashed terror and mayhem on the people of my senatorial district. Many of them have died, numerous wounded and hundreds of thousands are now internally displaced. The victims are largely the Tiv speaking ethnic nationalities, 32 of them have reportedly been killed and we are still counting.
“The real tragedy is not in the well coordinated and simultaneous carnage across Awe, Obi, Keana and Doma local government areas, but in the fact that for four days running, this mayhem has continued unhindered, unchecked, unstopped by any arm of the law and security enforcement agency.”
“It baffles me and beats my imagination that a whole law enforcement agency of the Nigerian state will stand by and witness Nigerians being killed endlessly. Nobody can explain this.
“It is no wonder that eminent Nigerians have urged the citizens to defend themselves. I am very emotional on this matter and I am not one given to emotion very easily. But what I have gone through this weekend was very horrifying; it is very distressing and sad. It is as if we were in a lawless society where life is brutish, where there is absence of state powers. We call on the Federal Government to stop this carnage.”
Barnabas Gemade (APC, Benue State) said: “It is a shame that a sitting government could watch criminality go to the level that we have seen it today and rather than rise up and take very decisive steps against it, we embark on deniability and simply shield this evil by just explaining with flimsy excuses that these are communal clashes in those communities.
“I don’t understand why responsible people elected to control the governments of Nigeria will simply turn away from the reality of facing this matter squarely. The inspector-general of police will fly by helicopter to a town, land in the market square and be asking people whether there is militia in the town or not, and nobody seems to call anybody to order. This is very sad.
“The advice of some nationalists to the people to find ways of protecting themselves may not be out of order because a government that cannot protect people and a military whose presence in any particular place means the killing of certain ethnic nationalities they do not believe in is a very sad development.”
