Fears of Boko Haram attacking Abuja grips senators

…seek audience with Buhari

The Senate on Tuesday resolved to send its leadership to meet with President Muhammadu Buhari over the spate of insecurity in the country.

The decision came after many senators had expressed fear that the Boko Haram insurgents could overrun the nation’s capital, Abuja, following the group’s deadly attacks on neighboring states.

On Monday, the Governor of Niger State, Sani Bello, revealed that Boko Haram terrorists had taken over about 50 communities in the state.

Bello said the terrorist group is just some two hours away from Abuja.

The Senate dedicated Tuesday’s plenary to the discussion on the rising insecurity in different parts of the country. More than 15 of them contributed to the motion on the activities of Boko Haram terrorists in three local governments of Niger State.

Musa Sani from Niger State had moved the motion, tagged, “Activities of bandits and Boko Haram terrorists in Niger State”.

A Kogi senator, Smart Adeyemi, was one of the contributors. In an emotional speech, he spoke for over five minutes, describing the current state of insecurity in Nigeria as the worst so far.

He said, “Some people believe that some people in government are supporting this move. We cannot pretend that we are capable of handling the situation in our hands. America, as powerful as they are, when the pandemic came, it came to a point China came to their rescue.

“We shouldn’t pretend that we need foreign support now. Billions of naira has been voted for security service and nothing is coming out of it. I’m a party man and I’m supporting the APC but it has got to a point that as supporters we cannot keep quiet.”

Danjuma Tella La’ah of the PDP, representing Kaduna South, suggested that the Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, could take over control of the country as the number three citizen.

“The Senate President, you’re number three in this country. If other people cannot fight for…go and take over, we’ll support you.

“If you call for impeachment now, they’ll be looking for who made the call. Whether it is good or not, they don’t want to know. But they don’t know we are saying the minds of our people.

“If you don’t move forward, we won’t follow you. If you move forward, we’ll follow you… I’ll not open my mouth to say let’s impeach but you know the rest.”

After debating the motion, the Senate resolved that the President of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan, should lead other principal officers of the upper legislative chamber to meet with President Buhari.

It also resolved to summon the newly-appointed service chiefs to brief them on steps so far taken to salvage the situation.

But no date was announced for the meeting/briefing.

“I can authoritatively confirm that the Boko Haram terrorists have mounted their flags in many of the villages they have captured such as Kaure, Alawa and Magami,” Sani said.

He added, “Inhabitants of these war-torn parts of the State have been abandoned and left to their fate thereby compelling them to wallow in perpetual agony and abject misery.”

Sani informed his colleagues that about 42 communities across the two local government areas of Shiroro and Munya Local Government have so far fallen under the Boko Haram control with about 5,000 villagers already displaced in the last three days.

“They have kidnapped many and their wives seized from them and forcefully attached to Boko Haram members while three military camps in Allawa, Bassa and Zagzaga in the two local government areas have been sacked and some security personnel killed by the insurgents in the last one month of renewed attacks,” the lawmaker said.

Former Deputy President of the Senate, Ike Ekweremadu, said any government that could not secure its citizen had lost its legitimacy to lead.

He said since the primary responsibility of the government is to protect the people.