The failure of Service Chiefs to brief the Senate on the performance of the emergency rule in Adamawa, Borno and Yobe State angered Senators yesterday.
The upper chamber had invited the Service Chiefs to brief it on the performance of ongoing emergency rule in the three northeastern states.
The Senate also wanted a comprehensive briefing on Monday’s ferocious attack in parts of Borno State by suspected members of the Boko Haram sect.
The Senate was forced to end its closed door meeting arranged to receive the security chiefs when it discovered that the Chief of Army Staff, Lt. Gen. Azubuike Ihejirika, Chief of Naval Staff, Vice Admiral Dele Ezeoba and Inspector General of Police, Mr. Mohammed Abubakar, did not turn up for the scheduled briefing.
The Chief of Defence Staff, Air Vice Marshal Ola Sa’ad Ibrahim, Chief of Air Staff, Air Marshall Alex Badeh, Director General of the State Security Service, Ita Ekpeyong and representative of the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Minister for Special Duties, Kabiru Turaki attended the aborted briefing.
Senate President, David Mark, announced that the secret meeting was called off because of the absence of some of the security chiefs.
A source at the closed door meeting told our correspondents that the lawmakers were angered when it was learnt that the absence of the security chiefs was due to their meeting with some American security officials.
The source noted that most of the Senators felt “belittled” by the action of the security chiefs.
He said, “I don’t know of any American army officer or security agency that will come to tell the American Senate that their members are not around for a scheduled meeting because they were having meeting with American security officials. “We did not walk them out but we told them that we cannot take them until we see all their heads. It does not matter what you get from America but that is not enough reason for them not to come.
“It still just tells us that yet they still don’t see the legislature as actually overseers. They just see us as another nuisance body created by the Constitution. “But maybe by the time they come back next time they would have now learnt their lessons. Of course, we have a military man who is senior to all of them,” he said.
The Chairman, Senate Committee on Information, Media and Public Affairs, Senators Enyinnaya Abaribe, who later briefed reporters on the development, said the planned briefing by the Service Chiefs and the heads of the other security agencies including the Inspector General of Police could not hold.