Senate president tells service chiefs to sit up or be fired
The President of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan, on Sunday met with President Muhammadu Buhari on the increasing security challenges in the country.
Lawan told State House correspondents after the meeting that he believed in providing more resources for the nation’s security agents and the need for the heads of the agencies to sit up or be shown the way out.
The Senate had on June 11 mandated the leadership of the National Assembly to urgently hold a meeting with the President on the nation’s security challenges.
Recall that Buhari on Thursday also assessed the deteriorating security situation in the country and declared that the nation’s security chiefs were not living up to their responsibilities.
Lawan told journalists that the government must be ready to give a timeline to the security chiefs over the nation’s security challenges.
He said, “I think we must tell ourselves the truth that the security situation in the country, especially in the northern part of the country, requires that we give much more resources to the security agencies.
“Those who are heading these agencies, especially the service chiefs, must sit up.
“If, after we provide some support, someone is found short of expectations, he should be shown the way out. This is because the lives of Nigerians are so precious and therefore must be more important than any other consideration.
“I believe that today, the most essential thing in government is to address the security challenges.”
He said the National Assembly was favourably disposed to receiving a supplementary budget specially designed to address the fundamental needs of the security agencies.
The President of the Senate said there was the need to empower the security agencies to enable them to fight the Boko Haram sect in the North-East, as well as banditry and other security challenges across the country.
He added, “In the Senate, we believe we need to provide more resources for recruitment by the security agencies: Army, Navy, Air Force, Police, immigration, the paramilitary generally.
“We need to have more manpower or personnel and this is not something you get on a platter. Whoever wants to make an omelette will break an egg.”
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