The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, on Monday spoke about what transpired in the meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari over the state of insecurity in the country.
This is as he gave indication that there would likely be improvement in the security situation of the country following the outcome of the meeting.
Gbajabiamila and Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, were at the Presidential Villa, to pass the position of the National Assembly on the state of insecurity to the president.
Following the increasing state of insecurity in the country, the two houses of the National Assembly suggested that the service chiefs should be sacked having allegedly failed in their duties.
But emerging from the meeting with the president, Gbajabiamila gave indication that there would be changes in the handling of affairs with regards to the state of insecurity.
According to him, a committee involving the two arms of government had been set up to periodically review the issue of security.
“Just right now we have gone on to set up a committee that will periodically review the issue of security, maybe once a month or once in six weeks, which will involve the two arms of government and the party.
“Major progress was made in this discussion, which is a meeting that lasted over an hour and I believe Nigerians will begin to see traction, they’ll begin to see changes. You can be sure that concrete steps were taken in that direction,” he said
“The question of security is uppermost in his mind and he opened up to us and you must understand that some communications are privileged, but suffice to say that the president is concerned and he intends to do something about our challenges.
“Opinions are divided; the generality of the opinion is that the service chiefs should go, that was evident in our debates in the House of Representatives and in the senate, bus sometimes you don’t want a knee-jerk reaction.
“Many of us identify that something drastic has to be done, there’s also the school of thought that says since we are talking about banditry, kidnapping and murders, what have the armed forces got to do with that, anywhere in the world?
“So, the question then arises that if he changes the service chiefs, does that address the issues of kidnapping and banditry? The army, navy and air force are outfits set up to tackle external aggression. It is the police that is set up for internal security, such as we are all witnessing.
“That’s talking about service chiefs, has the inspector-general of police met up with his responsibilities? The question is if we now narrow it that to the inspector-general to police, many will argue that he has done a very good job and many will argue with you that he’s straight-jacketed, there’s very little he can do in the face of no equipment, no funding and we explained to Mr. President that we have to increase funding, we have to recruit more.”
