Following the increasing spate of killings across the country, Senate President, Dr Bukola Saraki and Sokoto State Governor, Hon Aminu Tambuwal have called for the immediate removal of security chiefs to allow for fresh and innovative ideas on how to protect the nation and its citizens.
Tambuwal spoke while declaring open the National Executive Council (NEC) meeting of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), holding in Sokoto.
The governor noted that there was no need retaining security heads that could not find solution to perennial security challenges in the country.
He also charged media managers and professionals to rise against increasing rate of disseminating fake news items that had been fuelling ethnic and religious violence in the country.
On his part, Saraki said the killings in the country were abnormal because they involve loss of human lives.
Saraki, who fielded questions from journalists in Ilorin, Kwara State capital, last Saturday, particularly blamed security chiefs for working at cross purposes and for their refusal to partner with the National Assembly, insisting that incompetent hands among them must be ready to give way in order to end the current security challenges in the affected areas.
He added that the National Assembly would not shy away from its responsibility, saying that incessant killings must stop.
Meanwhile, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has described as diversionary the allegation by the Buhari Media Organisation (BMO) that it sponsored the latest killings in Plateau State.
The party said that rather than shielding the President, BMO should tell its principal to live up to the responsibility of his office by stopping the bloodletting in various parts of the country.
The party was reacting to a statement by the BMO that it was behind the Plateau killings.
In a statement issued by the National Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Kola Ologbondiyan, last Saturday, the PDP said Buhari media handlers were chasing shadows with their “baseless” allegation which, it noted, was borne out of frustration.
Also reacting, the Plateau Initiative for Development and Advancement (PIDAN), in collaboration with Conference of autochthonous Ethnic Community Development Association (CONAEDA), faulted the death toll in the Plateau killings pegged at over 100, saying the toll was above 219 and many more were still missing.
PIDAN, the umbrella body for ethnic nationalities in the state, expressed concern over the Federal Government’s exclusion of the North-Central from the attention given to the North-East, noting that people in their thousands were temporarily camped in 11 different places across three local government areas of Plateau.
Another group, ‘Women for Women and He for She’, called for the overhaul of the security system in the country, saying reports from various quarters indicated that the system had been compromised.
In separate press briefings in Jos, the President of PIDAN, Dr. Aboi Madaki, and the state Coordinator of Women for Women and He for She, Dr. Jophia Gupar, lamented the untold hardship Plateau citizens were going through, saying “enough is enough.”
Meanwhile, the Deputy Senate President, Chief Ike Ekweremadu, yesterday, said that he has concluded arrangements to sponsor a bill that would decentralise nation’s policing system.
Ekweremadu has however slammed the current system as “dysfunctional and unsuitable for a federal system”.
Responding to the rising insecurity and killings in Nigeria, the Deputy Senate President said that the killings had continued mainly because the federating states were not constitutionally allowed to recruit, train, and equip enough manpower for the security of lives and property of citizens in their states.
In a statement by his Special Adviser, Media, Uche Anichukwu, Ekweremadu spoke during an interactive session with Fulbright Scholars, Exchange Scholars, and Graduate Students at the International Centre for Information and Nelson Mandela Institute of Research in his maiden lectures as a Professor and Senior Mentoring Scholar, E-Governance and Strategic Government Studies, Nelson Mandela School of Public Policy and Social Sciences, Southern University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, USA.
Ekweremadu said, “Unlike here in the United States where the component states, counties, big institutions set up police service to address their local needs, the Nigerian constitution vests the security of a very vast, multifarious, and highly populated country in hands of the Federal Government.
“The internal security of Nigeria depends on one man or woman, who sits in Abuja as the Inspector-General of Police. The governor of a state, though designated as the chief security officer of the state by the constitution, cannot direct the police commissioner of his state on security matters.
“The commissioner will have to clear with the Assistant Inspector-General of Police, who will clear with a Deputy Inspector-General of Police, who will also clear with the Inspector-General of Police, who may in turn need to clear with the President, who is the Commander-in Chief of the Armed Forces. By the time the clearance comes, if it ever does, it would have been late.
“Nigeria is the only federal system I know, which operates a unitary or centralised policing. Ironically, it was not the case in the beginning. The founding fathers agreed on a federal constitution, which allowed the component units to set up local police organisations. But it was overturned by the military and successive civilian regimes have continued to play the ostrich.”
On the way forward, he said: “As far as I am concerned, whatever we are doing now is certainly not working and we cannot continue to do the same thing and expect a different result.
“The real tragedy of the Plateau massacre is that we risk more attacks and loss of lives unless we decentralise our policing and allow every state at least to take their fates in their own hands.
“So, despite the failure of previous attempts to decentralise the police during constitution amendments, I will introduce a bill that will bring about state police or decentrliased policing once I return to Nigeria.”
On the chances of the bill, Ekweremadu said events in recent years had proved beyond reasonable doubt that the current centralised security system would never help the government to leave up to its primary responsibility, which he explained the welfare of the people and the protection of their lives and property.
He said,”I think people are now facing the stack reality. I have been getting calls from serving and former governors and key players and interests, who were opposed to the idea of state police. They confess they have seen what some of us have been shouting from the rooftops over the years. They want the bill introduced.
“The Governors Forum is also favourably disposed to the idea now. In fact, their chairman, the governor of Zamfara State, one of the epicentres of the incessant killings, recently, ‘resigned’ his position as the chief security officer of his state as the current constitutional arrangement denies him the powers, manpower, and resources to stem the killings in his state.
“The bill will also address the fears of Nigerians opposed to state police. Just like the judiciary, the bill will provide for a central police service commission and also structure the state police services in ways that immune them from abuse by any governor or state. It is also a bill we can conclude in record time.”
Similarly, the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has lambasted the Buhari government for “pampering” killers of innocent Nigerians.
The body also stated that the Federal Government has lost the capacity to enforce laws and protect Nigeria and Nigerians.
ASUU Chairman, University of Ibadan Chapter, Dr. Deji Omole. who made this known while speaking with journalists at the weekend in Ibadan, said the body language of the President and the police have shown incapacity to arrest, and prosecute the perpetrators of killings nationwide.
While declaring that 80 per cent of cows in the country are owned by the ruling class who have over the years exploited and impoverished the masses, Omole asserted that the move to use public fund to establish private ranches for the business of those in government and their cronies should be rejected by Nigerians.
He said public funds must be deployed for the provision of public goods such as quality education, health, water, power and road for the majority which he said the Buhari government has failed to provide.
Omole while speaking further said it was unthinkable that the Federal Government and their followers were more interested in 2019 elections, saying that the security of lives and properties of Nigerians are more vital as most people now live in fear.
He said that the killing of over 200 Nigerians in Plateau without security response revealed that Nigerians are now living in a state of nature where live is short, nasty and brutish.
Omole said, “What Nigerians demand from this government is to provide a safe and secure environment for them and their families.
“Nowhere is safe in Nigeria. The Federal Government is showing by the attitudes and behaviours of the president to killings that those killing should be pampered while those being killed should tolerate the killings. We demand to see that the rustlers and killer herdsmen are brought to face the wrath of the law.
“If killings continue, it may be difficult to have 2019 elections, which is why the lives of Nigerians are more important than any political ambition of any person. Buhari is breaching the social contract by failing to secure the lives of Nigerians and ensuring the enforcement of laws. Are there no laws against tress-pass?
“What does the law say about murder? Does the law allow private citizens to carry arms without license? Does the law talk about pampering killers and consoling the victims? Injustices will deepen hatred and distrust among Nigerians against Nigerians and against government”.