The leadership of the National Assembly under the chairmanship of Senate President Dr Ahmad Lawan on Monday gave an assurance that it will approve any extra-budgetary request of the Executive for the security agencies to wage a total war on the rising level of insecurity in the country if the executive body presents any such request.
Lawan, made this disclosure while speaking with newsmen at the Presidential Villa, Abuja after a closed-door meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari, he further stated that the federal government is headed in the right direction with its latest moves to fight security challenges across the country and pleaded with Nigerians to be patient
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According to him, the legislative arm will approve budgetary proposals for more funds to be released from the excess crude account to the security agencies to procure more weapons in the fight against insurgency and other security matters facing the nation.
He said: ‘You’ll recall that the National Economic Council approved of taking some funds from the Excess Crude Accounts with a view to giving more resources to our armed forces. This is a commendable effort and we are ready to help with appropriation to ensure that we acquire those security weapons for the armed forces of this country to end this insecurity in the North-east, in the North-west, in the South-east/South-south and South-west as well.
‘We believe that this is also going to help empower and build the capacity of other security agencies like the police because the police need to be there. They’re supposed to maintain the internal security and whenever the armed forces secure an environment, the police should be there to stay put and make sure there is law and order.’
Lawan explained that he had fruitful deliberation with the president on the need to secure all parts of the country, especially the rural areas ahead of the planting season for farmers.
‘We had a very extensive discussion on the security of all parts of Nigeria and how we should go about improving the situation. We all have roles to play. Nobody would like to see the kind of things that we experience in various parts of the country in the form of insecurity.
‘As political leaders, we have responsibilities to our people and we cannot shy away from that. We have to get our people secured; we have to secure the environment for them to earn their means of livelihood; we’ll like to see our farmers go back to farms before the rainy season starts.
‘This means we have to secure the rural parts of Nigeria as well as the urban centres because we need businesses to flourish. So I believe that between now and probably the next two months, there will be a lot of activities to ensure that we recover and secure the environments for our people to lead a very normal life,’ he said.
The Senate President also stressed the need for Nigerians to live in any part of the country irrespective of where the people come from in the spirit of one Nigeria.
AFRICA TODAY NEWS, NEW YORK