Indications emerged on Sunday that the President Muhammadu Buhari led administration will soon unfold new measures to deal with the current spate of insecurity in the country and the leadership crises ravaging the ruling All Progressive Congress APC.
This much was revealed by the Senate President, Ahmed Lawan, while speaking with State House Correspondents after meeting with President Buhari at the Presidential Villa Abuja on Sunday.
The Senate President however did not say what those actions would be, but noted that it is prepared to receive Supplementary Budget on security, even as he called for reorganizing of the nation,s security architecture, adding that “Whoever wants to make an omelette will break an egg”
Ahmed who lamented the current state of insecurity across the country as well as the crises in the APC , said he used the opportunity of his meeting with the President “to discuss with the president who is the leader of the party in Nigeria” and added that “by the grace of God in the next few days we will see certain actions will be taken and we are praying that all our leaders in the party across the country will make every possible effort to get the party reconciled”
” You know the country is facing very deep and serious security challenges and I have come to discussed with Mr. president what we discussed previously that we should do whatever it takes to improve the security situation in the country.
“And we believe that the Senate and indeed the National Assembly is positively disposed to receiving even supplementary budget purposely to address the fundamental needs of the security agencies of our country, so that we able to empower them, enable them to fight the Boko Haram in the North East, banditry and other security challenges across the country.
“We believe we need to provide more resources for recruitment by the security yet agencies Army, the Navy, Air Force, Police, immigration, the paramilitary generally.
“We need to have more manpower or personnel and this is not something you get on platter of gold. Whoever wants to make an omelette will break an egg.
According to him, “Section 14 subsection 2b of the constitution of the Federal Republic Nigeria is very categorical and crystal clear, that the purpose of government shall be to provide for security and welfare of the people. Therefore, we must, we have no luxury of any option other than to address the security challenges more than any other thing”
He noted that the National Assembly had provided for N500 billion intervention for COVID for the revised budget, and various agencies, the CBN, the NNPC and the IOCs provided for palliatives and some kind of interventions for the COVID challenge.
“I think we must tell ourselves the truth, that the security situation in the country especially in the northern part of the country, require that we give much more resources to the security agencies.
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And those who are heading these agencies especially the service chiefs, must sit up, in fact we must have milestones and timelines on how we are going to deal with this, we can’t just go on without any time frame for dealing with these issues.
“If after we provide some support and someone is found short of expectations, he should be shown the way out if he refuses to go. Because the lives of Nigerians are so precious and therefore must be more important than any other considerations or sentiments. I believe that today, the most essential thing in government is to address the security challenges”
Lawan said he also used the opportunity to talk to the president about the challenges in the APC, adding that “I believe that we have to deal with these challenges, this is the ruling party of the federal republic of Nigeria, with the president, with the control of the National Assembly, with more governors than any other political party, the situation should not, must not be allowed to degenerate further than it has.
Lawan while calling for respect for the party,s constitution, said it will help to address the current crises
Lawan noted that the stability of APC is the stability of Nigeria, adding that ” this is the party that is running the affairs of this country.
“So I believe that we have to sort this out and that will make our work even better and easier when we have a stable party. Because the party is supposed to be part of the apparatus of running government. We are supposed to run or operate or implement or execute the manifesto of the party.
“And therefore the party is so key, so central, so essential to ensuring that government whether on the executive or legislative side continues to face those issues in the manifesto and of course the manifesto will be to make Nigeria better.
