Senators fret over Personal Security
Derin George
The issue of insecurity in the country takes the lead once again at plenary session in the Senate today in Abuja. Two senators, Shehu Sani of Kaduna and his counterpart, Kabir Marafa from Jigawa raised concerns about the security of lives and property in their respective constituencies. Sani asked for urgent attention to be paid to the ongoing killings in Birnin-Gwari local government area of Kaduna State. Senator Sani has been consistent in bringing up the crisis situations in his constituency where there had been killing of harmless constituents. The senator who appealed to the conscience of the Senate on the issue told his colleagues, “on and on, people are being killed and farmers are relocating to the cities due to fear of their lives.”
Sani’s statement compliments similar effort that had even graduated to a sore point in the upper house of recent. In an attempt to investigate the killings in states like Benue, Taraba, Plateau, Nassarawa, Jigawa and Kogi, the Senate had summoned Ibrahim Idris, the inspector general of police to appear before it and explain efforts and perhaps challenges of the police in tackling the crisis. But after the legislators rejected a representation through one of his lieutenants, a deputy inspector general of police, the Senate holds it against the police chief that he has failed to honour their invitation for three times. The development has soured relationship between the Senate and the IG.
In fact , initially the IG would have been expected to answer questions on the treatment meted to Dino Melaye, senator representing Kogi West when he was arrested by the police recently. But the Senate said it had changed its mind on that, stating that the only issue the IG was needed to discuss was the killings across the country.
But as they debated on the floor of the Senate Wednesday, the issue of personal security of the law makers also came to the fore. For instance, Senator Kabir Marafa, Zamfara State reported that over the weekend at his constituency, a superior police officer disarmed is orderly and got him detained. The gentleman was still in custody, according to Marafa, as at the time of the report in the Senate. The president f the Senate, Bukola Saraki also reported that information reaching him claimed that the IG was making plans to implicate him in the case of conflict of cult groups in his state of Kwara. Saraki told fellow senators, “I know the gravity of the issue, that is why I am bringing it to your attention and to continue to let our colleagues and the world know presently the danger we are going with and the levels of rascality that is going on with some of these actions.” Perhaps because the reports indicate that the national assembly was coming under deliberate attack from agencies under the executive, shortly after hoodlums invaded the Senate and successfully made away with the mace, the senators decided to raise a delegation to the presidency led by Saraki.
