Senate To Meet Regional Stakeholders Over Insecurity

Amid security concerns plaguing the country, the Senate has revealed its plan to hold meetings with critical stakeholders in the six geo-political zones in order to unearth the root causes of the menace and devise pragmatic measures to restore peace and stability in troubled areas.

The upper chamber, while defending the interactive initiative, said no amount of money invested in infrastructure development would guarantee tangible outcomes if peace and stability are not established in the danger zones.

Leader of the Senate and chairman, Senate Ad-hoc Committee on National Security Summit, Senator Opeyemi Bamidele, reeled out the plans at the inaugural meeting of the committee yesterday in Abuja.
As part of its response to rising insecurity, the Senate had constituted a 20-man committee on the national security summit and appointed Bamidele to drive the process and proffer measures for enduring peace.

Alongside Bamidele, the membership of the committee comprises chief whip of the Senate, Senator Tahir Monguno; minority leader of the Senate, Senator Abba Moro; minority whip of the Senate, Senator Osita Ngwu; chairman, Senate Committee on the Interior, Senator Adams Oshiomhole; chairman, Senate Committee on Police Affairs, Senator Ahmad Malam-Madori; chairman, Senate Committee on Navy, Senator Gbenga Daniel; chairman, Senate Committee on Defence, Senator Ahmed Lawan; and chairman, Senate Committee on Army, Senator Abdulaziz Yar’Adua, among others.

The chairman of the ad-hoc committee stressed the need to address the country’s security concerns regionally, saying the national summit on security was designed “to ensure that every Nigerian lives and works in peace irrespective of their location and status in life.”

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Bamidele, further, said no amount of money invested in infrastructure development “will translate to any meaningful outcome without peace and security. For this reason, transforming pervasive insecurity to enduring peace is at the heart of the national security summit.

“To achieve this objective, the committee will first hold meetings with critical stakeholders in each geo-political zone with a view to unravelling the root causes of security challenges, identifying key actors behind it and devising measures for their effective management.

“The committee shall also engage victims of armed violence in different parts of the federation for the purpose of seeking diverse perspectives to these challenges. We will interact with our people on ground; listen to their fear and apprehension and garner their suggestions on how to transform insecurity to effective order,” he assured Nigerians.

Bamidele said Nigeria can only be on the path of development and prosperity when peace and unity are guaranteed.

He said the committee will work round the clock to come up with far-reaching measures that will bring about peace and stability.

“The summit will involve every segment of Nigerian society; traditional institutions, government agencies, military and intelligence/security agencies, and local government, the media and other public spirited individuals and groups with good ideas to share towards attaining the desired outcome of the summit.”

Providing insight into the country’s security dynamics, the senate leader noted the ugly trends of banditry and kidnapping in the North-west; terrorism and extremist violence in the North-east; farmers-herders crisis in the North-central; separatism and gang violence in the South-east; environmental conflict and oil theft in the South-south as well as abduction and ritual killing in the South-west.

The chairman noted that the activities of insurgents and bandits “were restricted to the North-east and North-west in the past with a few states attacked in the North-central. Today, however, Kwara is negatively affected. The story of Benue is getting worse by the day.

“In the South-east, the separatist and farmers-herdsmen conflicts are becoming almost a daily occurrence. This is compounded by the menace of kidnap for ransom. The South-west is not left out of this plague, especially with the increasing cases of ritual killing.

“The South-south, too, is plagued with the incessant vandalisation of national oil assets, kidnapping, oil theft, piracy and sea armed robbery. All these issues constitute economic sabotage to our fatherland,” Bamidele said with assurance to nip the challenges in the bud.