The leadership of the Senate is meeting behind closed doors with service chiefs over the lingering security situation in the country.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that present at the meeting are the Chief of Defence Staff, Gen. Lucky Irabor; Chief of Army Staff, Lt.- Gen. Faruk Yahaya; Chief of Naval Staff; Vice Adm. Awwal Gambo, and Chief Air Staff; Air Marshal Oladayo Amao.
Others are the Inspector-General of Police, Mr Usman Baba; the Director-General of Department of State Services (DSS), Yusuf Bichi; the Commandant General of the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps, Dr Ahmed Audi and the Director General National Intelligence Agency (NIA); Ahmed Abubakar.
NAN also reports that the National Security Adviser, Babagana Monguno, was said to be attending the weekly Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting when the closed-door session was held at the Senate.
Speaking at the opening of the meeting, Senate President Ahmad Lawan, said the security challenges had lingered and the Senate had hoped that the situation would have been better.
He said: “This session is to look into where we are today and this current position where we are is most frightening. This is like there is nowhere to go.
“We have to review what more we have to do and what differently we have to do.
“Insecurity is everywhere and especially if it is coming to the point of dislocating the security situation where the government is quartered.
“We will really review and see what more we have to do and how differently we have to do.
“Our population is largely peasant. Most of our people are in the rural areas and they live their lives by going to farms. We all know this. In many parts of the country today, that is a herculean task.
“My belief is that we can do better to secure the rural areas, the so-called ungoverned space at least for our population who go to farms to earn their living.
“Where our agricultural productivity is drastically going down, that will complicate the security situation because the most ordinary Nigerian cares more about what he or she or what the family will eat. And of course, all other things are secondary.
“We have problems with our economy to some extent because of insecurity. No foreign direct investment or not as much as we would ordinarily attract to our country.
“Our prayer is to start seeing serious, remarkable and dramatic changes from today.
“We hope that our discussions will give us the opportunity to consider other things or other areas or ideas that we didn’t have before,” Lawan said.
In his remarks, the Chief of Defence Staff said that issues of national security must be seen from a collective perspective.
While noting that quite a lot had happened and quite a lot had been done, Irabor assured Nigerians that the military would do more to improve the security setting across the country.
“The commitment is there. No one is leaving any stone unturned in redressing all the imbalances within the security environment,” he said. (NAN)
