Yemisi Izuora
Human Rights and Constitutional Lawyer, Femi Falana, has described the call for national security summit, by Senate President Ahmed Lawan as completely escapist and diversionary.
He said, not too long ago, a former President regularly convened security
meetings to address the security challenge facing the country when he
was in power, but under his watch the country witnessed the highest rate
of politically motivated killings in the history of the country because
the recommendations of the security summits were never implemented.
Falana also recalled that on February 8, 2018 the Senate convened a well attended national security summit at Abuja, in which the Executive branch of the Federal government participated. Incidentally, Senator Ahmed Lawan was the
Chairman of the Ad Hoc Committee set up by the Senate to review the
security situation in the country and the Committee submitted a report with
far reaching recommendations but apart from the enactment of the Police
Security Fund the other recommendations of the Committee have not been
implemented, he observed
He further recalled that on June 8, 2019, the Executive convened a security summit
attended by the President, Vice President, the 36 State Governors and
Service Chiefs to review the security situation in the country and the resolutions of the summit have not been implemented.
“Therefore, instead of calling for the setting up of another security
summit the Senate under the leadership of Senator Lawan should implement
the resolutions of the Senate and the recommendations of the Executive
on national security.
Notwithstanding that section 214 of the Constitution provides that there
shall be one police force in Nigeria the National Assembly enacted the
Security and Civil Defence Corps Act in 2003 and thereby established
another police force. In addition, the operatives of the graft agencies,
customs, prisons, federal road safety corps etc have been authorized to
bear arms by a Presidency that is opposed to State Police.
Therefore, the National Assembly should end the official hypocrisy by
ensuring that the Constitution is amended to allow each government to
establish a State Police Service to secure the life and property of the
Nigerian people.
As a matter of urgency, the National Assembly should appropriate a
Special Security Fund for the recruitment and training of police
personnel without any further delay.” he advised.
Falana also suggested that in line with the provisions of the Constitution the Nigeria Police Council (constituted by the President, State Governors,
Inspector-General of Police and Chairman of Police Service Commission)
should meet on a regular basis to administer, organize and supervise the
Nigeria Police Force.
“Pursuant to Section 14 of the Constitution the federal, state and local
governments should be constituted in such manner to reflect the
diversity of the people. In particular, workers, women, youths and
physically challenged are entitled to be included in the governments.” he said.
According to him, Recently, the Federal Ministry of Finance announced that the sum of N605 billion has been recovered from asset recovery and the whistle blowing
policy of the federal government. In the same vein, the anti graft
agencies, Federal Ministry of Justice and Presidential Panel on Public
Property have announced the recovery of hundreds of billions of Naira.
From the recovered loot the federal government should earmark the sum of
N1 billion for job creation in each local government in the country.
He said state governments should embark on the immediate prosecution of all
armed robbery, murder and kidnap suspects that have been paraded by the
police and other security agencies and in order to end the violent clashes between farmers and herders, state governments should speed up the establishment of ranches and abattoirs in various parts of the country.