The Senator representing Edo South Senatorial District in the National Assembly, Senator Matthew Urhoghide, on Wednesday, said the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), had demonstrated incompetence in tackling insecurity in Nigeria.
The Senator, who represented his constituency in the 8th and 9th Senate, made the statement while talking to journalists in Benin City, Edo State.
He said, “Let me say that every Nigerian is highly disturbed about the security situation in the country and the events of the past few weeks have shown that the Federal Government is not ready to tackle insecurity in the country.
“The National Assembly, as an arm of government, has done a lot to encourage the government to improve security in Nigeria by appropriating the funds required to buy all types of equipment and recruitment of manpower, so that all the security forces can be mobilised to fight insecurity. There is nothing the National Assembly has not done in terms of organising security summits, coming up with resolutions which, of course, have been passed on to the FG for implementation in order to end the menace of insecurity. But these are suggestions and our resolutions and decisions do not carry any element of compulsion, that is why this situation is beyond the opposition.
“The President has shown a lot of incompetence and a lot of us believe that he does not want to do anything or else there is no reason why we should be in this dire situation, where everybody in Nigeria today is not sure of being alive the next minute.
“If somebody wants to commit suicide in Nigeria, the simplest way to do it is to travel from Abuja to Kaduna by road, because the person stands 50 per cent chance of not returning and the federal government knows this,” he added.
He said the shortage of manpower in the armed forces and paramilitary have made it impossible for them to maintain peace and order in Nigeria.
“There is serious shortage of manpower in the military and paramilitary. We have the statistics to show that all the security forces put together (the Army, Air Force, Navy, including Customs) are not up to 1.2 million in a country of 200 million people. The Senate, sometime ago, mandated those in charge of the police to at least recruit 10,000 every year and went ahead to do the appropriation for them to be able to implement police reforms, so that the police can be In tandem with international best practices when it comes to policing. I want to tell you that since the last four years that that decision was taken, the Nigeria police has not recruited that number,” he said.
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