Lawan joins call for removal of Service Chiefs

 ADEKUNLE ADESUJI, Abuja

President of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan, on Thursday joined call for the removal of Service Chiefs by President Muhammadu Buhari .

Lawan’s call for the removal of service chiefs came twenty four hours after the House of Representatives requested for the removal of service Chiefs over worsen security situation in the country.

According to him, time has come for us to ensure that governance is done as if it is business. If you employ someone, give that person a target. He accepts it on the basis of the fact that he believes he can meet the target and if he doesn’t meet the target? There is no explanation or cogent reasons for why he fails, he should go.

Lawan made this known at the plenary in his remarks on the point of order raised by Senator Kashim Shetimma over the recent bombing in Auno an outskirt town of Maiduguri, Borno state.

Lawan also called on the Senate to prepare to accommodate a supplementary budget to fund training institutions for the mobile police to meet up with challenges of internal security.

According to him, the challenge of insecurity stares all in the face and tasks Nigerian leaders to seek out solutions to address the problem.

He said already the Senate was already working on this and has reached out to the nation’s reserve forces comprising of security men in retirement to bring their input on the matter.

Shetima in his point of order said that the Military base must be established in Auno in other to tackle the insurgency in the state.

In his contributory debate, Senator Gabriel Suswam, Benue Northeast, said while it would not be proper to be emotional and playing to the gallery, it was equally important that the truth be told.

“When you want to hold the bull, you hold it by the horn but because consistently, we have refused to hold the hull by the horn. We would continue to have this problem.

“From then inception of this Ninth Assembly, what ha preoccupied us here is the issue of security that over time required us to approach this issue differently and call a spade a spade.

“It is not just us, we need the buy in of all other arms of government, we can talk and articulate then issues as they are, as we see them and based on hiw we relate with our people, if there is no strong synergy and or cooperation all we do here would remain mere talking.

“We must move beyond talking in the floor here every day on massive killings of our people.

“We know exactly where these people are, they go on trucks. People who come in trucks cannot be visible. They come in trucks and are well armed.”

Ibrahim Hadeja, Jigawa (North East) state said it was important to redirect the security towards the intelligence gathering to thwart any such plan by the insurgents as have been witnessed in other climes countering terrorism.

He said it appeared the reverse is the case and must be checked “instead of using intelligence gathering to nip the security situation in the bud, it seems to be that it is the insurgents that are taking advantage of these lapses in our security to plan and execute an attack and go back at will.

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