Senate President Ahmad Lawan has charged the military to “wake up” and protect Nigerians.
He gave the charge after one of his colleagues raised a motion on the urgent need for drastic actions to bring to an end to banditry and kidnapping.
Speaking at plenary on Wednesday, Senator Bello Mandiya (Katsina South) had said the acts of banditry and kidnapping had become a daily incident in Katsina.
The lawmaker recalled that, “on Sunday, 31st January, 2022, gunmen struck Ruwan Godiya a Community in Faskari Local Government Area of Katsina State where Thirty Eight (38) members of the community were kidnapped.
He stated that the Federal Government had made frantic effort in curbing the menace by setting up Operation Sharan Daji and Inter-Agency Task Force to tackle cases of banditry, cattle rustling and kidnapping.
Contributing, Senator Kabir Abdullahi Barkiya (Katsina Central), faulted the inability of the military to contain the situation despite several calls for it to act.
On his part, Lawan said the repeated cases of kidnappings and killings make it imperative for the military to “wake up” to protect Nigerians.
He wondered why full scale action was yet to be carried out by the military in spite of increased funding for security in the 2022 budget.
He said, “The expectation of the Senate is that there is supposed to be a remarkable difference in success in terms of the fight against insurgence, banditry and militancy in Nigeria.
“The military is getting better funding from the government and what we expect is to see an improvement in output.
“I know the resources are not enough, but recently for one and a half years, government has upscaled the level of funding for our military.
“Secondly, when we declared the bandits as terrorists, my understanding was they are going to be dealt with ruthlessly now. I wonder whether that is the case.
“The military like some of our colleagues have said, need to wake up. We want to see a difference because we have made a difference in terms of funding.
“I know funding alone will not be enough, but funding can make a difference and we expect a difference in outcome.
“Thirdly, we need to mobilise our citizens, because when a hundred people are kidnapped and abducted, they are not taken by aircrafts, they are taken by motor bikes, pass through the villages and possibly towns, how come do we then say that nobody has seen something?
“We need our citizens to be part and parcel of our security architecture. In fact, there’s no way we can achieve better security for this country without the participation of the citizens in the fight against Insecurity.”
Accordingly, the Senate urged the Security Agencies to comb all known hide outs of the kidnappers in a bid to rescue the Thirty Eight (38) persons abducted by the gunmen in Ruwan Godiya.
It also called on the Federal Government to send enough military personnel and fighter jets to apprehend bandits and restore normalcy in the affected area.
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