SENATE BLAMES BUHARI OVER BORNO STATE KILLINGS

…..To Investigate Military Budget

Caroline Ameh

The Senate on Tuesday blamed President Muhammadu Buhari’s government over the killings of farmers and others in Borno state and other part of the country.

Lamenting the high rate of killings in the country by the Boko Haram, the lawmakers said that government which failed to protect the lives of the people has lost its right and breach Section 14 (1) of the Constitution.

The Senate also said that it will assess the performance of the military and probe the budget to know if the fund allocated to them to fight insecurity is judiciously utilized.

Lamenting the failure of government to guarantee safety of lives and the inability of the authorities to end the state of insecurity in the country, the lawmakers took turn to condemn the activities of criminals who unleash mayhem on defenseless citizens across the country, especially the Northeast.

The lawmakers, who expressed their minds while contributing to a motion raised by Senator Kashim Shettima (APC Borno Central), added that if President Buhari insist on retaining the Service chiefs, the logical conclusion is that Mr. President has failed in his assignment of securing the nation.

In their resolutions, the lawmakers urged the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to immediately initiate a transitionary process of phasing out the current over-stayed Service chiefs and replace them with new ones with new ideas and solutions.

The Senate urged the President to take immediate steps to restructure remodel and revamp the country’s entire security architecture and provide enough state-of-the-art weapons and equipment to effectively combat the belligerent power of the insurgents.

The upper chamber also urged the President to immediately initiate probe into widespread allegations of corruption and leakages within the security structure and put mechanisms in place to foster transparency and ensure all resources meant and deployed for security are actually spent on the needs on ground.

They further impressed on the federal government to aggressively explore multilateral and bilateral options of partnership with the neighbouring nations of Chad, Niger and Cameroons towards reviving and strengthening the Multinational Joint Task Force and finding a lasting solution to the scourge of insurgency in the Lake Chad region.

The Senate also impressed on the federal government to as a matter of urgency, recruit at least 10,000 Civilian JIF, versatile with the local terrain in Borno as Agro-Rangers under the aegis of the NCDSC to complement the efforts of the Nigerian Armed Forces; and

Coming under order 42 and 45 of the Senate rules, Shettima lamented that 2801 attacks have been carried out between January to November this year in the state.

In his motion titled “beheading of 67 Farmers in Borno by Boko Haram Insurgents: Need for Urgent Decisive Action,” the lawmaker disclosed that about 40,000 people mostly unarmed civilians have been brutally murdered, 2.5 million people displaced from their homes and farms, property worth trillions of naira wentonly destroyed and over 7 million people mostly women and children plunged into dire humanitarian needs.

He said: “Over the weekend, Boko Haram insurgent members beheaded 67 farmers who had gone to a rice plantation at Kwashabe village in Zabarmari District of Jere Local Government Area, 20 kilometres north o: Maiduguri, Borno State Capital to harvest ripe farm produce and destroyed the farm.