Again, Senate Fails To Approve Emergency Rule Extension

Again, Senate Fails To Approve Emergency Rule Extension

The question of whether the Senate will approve the request of President Goodluck Jonathan to extend the state of emergency in Adamawa, Borno and Yobe states remained unanswered yesterday at the lawmakers failed to take a stand on the issue even after meeting with service chiefs yesterday.

Though the Senate said that the extension of emergency rule was not on the agenda of the meeting that held yesterday, the lawmakers, however, stated that the military insisted on a state of emergency to effectively carry out the war against insurgency.

The Senate had last Tuesday and Wednesday begun debate on the request, before resolving to get a briefing from security head of all security agencies in the country.

The Chief of Army Staff, Lt.-Gen Kenneth Mininmah, Chief of Air Staff, Air Marshal Adesola Amosun and the director-general of Department of State Services, Ita Ekpeyong, were present at the meeting. The inspector general of Police (IGP), Abba Suleiman, was absent. His representative, a deputy inspector-general, Operations, DIG Makama, was earlier sent out by the senators who insisted that the IGP appeared in person.

The meeting started at 11:13pm and lasted till 6:05pm with the service chiefs taking turns to brief the lawmakers on the matter.

Speaking after the meeting, Senate president David Mark described discussion during the meeting as robust” with the focus being on the challenges and progress made by the armed forces in the fight against insurgency.

Mark announced that the invasion of the National Assembly by police last week and related matters would be discussed today in an open session, and thereafter mandated the spokesman of the Senate, Enyinnaya Abaribe, to brief the media on the discussions held behind closed doors.

In his briefing, Sen Abaribe said the interaction “was very, very frank and very detailed”.

Though he said the Senate did not discuss the request of Mr President, he however said the military had insisted that they need the state of emergency to be able to effectively curtail the insurgency ravaging the region.

“We discussed the constraints of the Nigerian army in dealing with the insurgency. We also looked into the budgetary provision for them and what has been done so far in containing the insurgency and I can tell you the Senate was very, very impressed by the response from the military and, like I said, the military has shown itself to be capable of dealing with the insurgency.

“The fact that they are capable of dealing with the insurgency means that the Senate will do all it needs to within its power to support the military so that we can bring this insurgency to a quick resolution. “We also found from their briefing that we have some problems which have to do with the troop levels and the level of equipment and, of course, all the other ancillary problems where you have to fight an asymmetrical war – not a formal conflict, and we are very glad that that the military is at this moment gearing up itself to be able to deal with this asymmetrical conflict in the north east of Nigeria. As of today, we can assure Nigerians that the military is up to the task of dealing with this matter.”

Abaribe, however, revealed that “the question of state of emergency was not what was on the table today (yesterday) and we are going to also wait until it is brought to the floor of the Senate before we discuss it.”

Police, DSS continue National Assembly blockade

A combined team of fully armed mobile policemen, riot police and operatives of the Department of State Services (DSS) yesterday continued their blockade of the National Assembly.

The development comes barely five days after the police and the DSS’ blockade of the National Assembly apparently to fence out the Speaker, House of Representatives, Aminu Waziri Tambuwal failed.

LEADERSHIP reports that a major fallout of the fracas are heightened moves and counter moves by the camps of the Speaker and that of President Goodluck Jonathan to impeach the other.

The presidency has denied involvement in the National Assembly fracas.

While the House remains on recess till December 3, the Senate sat at an executive session over President Goodluck Jonathan’s request to extend emergency rule in the three North East states ravaged by the Boko Haram-led insurgency.

A senior DSS operative attached to the National Assembly, when contacted on the heavy security presence, described the operation as a ‘routine’ exercise.

The acting National Assembly Sergeant-at-Arms, Ibrahim Ndako declined comments.

It was learnt that Ndako’s refusal to speak followed queries he received after he informed newsmen that the mace – an authority symbol of a Legislative House and its Speaker – was safely under lock and key.

Last Wednesday, reports filtered around the National Assembly that the Mace had been taken out of the National Assembly.

SOURCE: Leadership News