Falana Faults Lawan’s Proposal For National Summit On Security

A Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Femi Falana, has described the
call by Nigeria’s Senate President, Ahmed Lawan, for a national
security summit as “escapist and diversionary.”

He expressed his displeasure with the call in a statement on
Thursday.

Falana said, “Not too long ago, a former President regularly
convened security meetings to address the security challenges
facing the country when he was in power. But under his watch, the
country witnessed the highest rate of politically motivated
killings in the history of the country because the recommendations
of the security summits were never implemented.

“On February 8, 2018, the Senate convened a well attended
national security summit at Abuja. The executive branch of the
Federal government participated at the summit. Incidentally,
Senator Ahmed Lawan was the Chairman of the ad hoc committee set up
by the senate to review the security situation in the country. The
committee submitted a report with far-reaching recommendations. But
apart from the enactment of the Police Security Fund, the other
recommendations of the committee have not been implemented.

“Furthermore, on June 8, 2019, the executive convened a security
summit attended by the President, Vice President, the 36 state
governors and service chiefs to review the security situation in
the country. The resolutions of the summit have not been
implemented.”

Falana said instead of calling for the set up of another
security summit, the senate should implement the resolutions of the
senate and the recommendations of the executive on national
security.

He added, “Notwithstanding that section 214 of the Constitution
provides that there shall be one police force in Nigeria, the
National Assembly enacted the Security and Civil Defence Corps Act
in 2003 and thereby established another police force. In addition,
the operatives of the graft agencies, customs, prisons, federal
road safety corps etc have been authorized to bear arms by a
Presidency that is opposed to State Police.

“Therefore, the National Assembly should end the official
hypocrisy by ensuring that the Constitution is amended to allow
each government to establish a state police service to secure the
life and property of the Nigerian people.

“As a matter of urgency, the National Assembly should
appropriate a Special Security Fund for the recruitment and
training of police personnel without any further delay.

“In line with the provisions of the Constitution, the Nigeria
Police Council (constituted by the President, state governors,
Inspector-General of Police and Chairman of Police Service
Commission) should meet on a regular basis to administer, organize
and supervise the Nigeria Police Force.

“Pursuant to Section 14 of the constitution, the federal, state
and local governments should be constituted in such a manner to
reflect the diversity of the people. In particular, workers, women,
youths and physically challenged are entitled to be included in the
governments.

“Recently, the Federal Ministry of Finance announced that the
sum of N605bn had been recovered from asset recovery and the
whistle blowing policy of the federal government. In the same vein,
the anti graft agencies, Federal Ministry of Justice and
Presidential Panel on Public Property have announced the recovery
of hundreds of billions of Naira. From the recovered loot the
federal government should earmark the sum of N1 billion for job
creation in each local government in the country.

“State governments should embark on the immediate prosecution of
all armed robbery, murder and kidnap suspects that have been
paraded by the police and other security agencies.

“In order to end the violent clashes between farmers and
herders, state governments should speed up the establishment of
ranches and abattoirs in various parts of the country.”

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