New Telegraph

It’s de javu on insecurity

Our distinguished senators returned from their short recess last week on a familiar note. While they were away on break, a lot happened in terms of the worsening insecurity across the country.

 

The hitherto peaceful South- West had witnessed a wave of ethnic nationalism, as a certain Sunday Adeyemo (aka Igboho) had arisen from among the Yoruba to challenge some perceived local imperialists said to have enslaved the people for many years. Igboho took up the gauntlet when he dared the marauding Fulani herders who have been terrorising the natives of Igangan in Ibarapa North Local Government Area of Oyo State.

 

The man had earlier issued a seven-day ultimatum to the herders to quit Igangan and when they didn’t, he successfully executed the eviction order by going physically to sack the Sarkin Fulani of Igangan.

 

As if that was not enough, Igboho had also moved into neighbouring Ogun State to evict the herders who had seized some Yewa communities and other parts of the state. In the neighbouring Ondo State,

 

Governor Rotimi Akeredolu had issued a sevenday ultimatum to the Fulani herders to vacate the forest reserves which they had occupied illegally for several years. The anger of both Akeredolu and Igboho was the high level of insecurity associated with the presence of these killer herders across the South -West.

 

While our distinguished senators were still holidaying, some parts of the South- East region also went up in flames. The battle was, and still is, between the Eastern Security Network and the armed Fulani cattle herders who also occupied the forests in the region.

 

These eruptions of violence in the South were in addition to the decade-old Boko Haram insurgency in the North-East and the heavily armed bandits of the North- West.

 

In essence, our distinguished senators returned from their last recess to meet Nigeria worse than they left it. The level of insecurity which they had debated and passed several motions about in the last six years, had worsened. But what did they do?

 

They simply put up a motion, chronicling all that had happened in their absence and passed some resolutions that were rather repetitions of their previous resolutions. If they think that they impressed anyone with those lamentations, they should know by now that they impressed no one but themselves.

 

Everyone knows that we have passed this road before and it is said that doing one thing repeatedly in the same way and expecting a different result is another definition of insanity. Right under the watch of this 9th Senate, everything is falling apart in the polity because they have chosen the path of docility.

 

They know that their resolutions do not carry any weight as they have been reduced to mere advisories. They know that there is nothing else left to advise the Presidency on the issue of insecurity ravaging the land, yet they went on passing the latest feeble resolutions. Perhaps, our distinguished senators have forgotten that the Senate has a great responsibility in a presidential democracy.

 

Apart from the basic function of lawmaking, it has broad oversight over all institutions of government including the Presidency whose failures are largely responsible for the worsening insecurity across the country.

 

Our distinguished senators appear to have forgotten that they were elected into the National Assembly to fight battles on behalf of their constituents and hold the Executive to account at all times.

 

It is sad that this crop of lawmakers have continued to pamper the Executive and make excuses for its failures on security matters in the last two years. President Muhammadu Buhari is not an emperor and must not be treated like one. He is a citizen who desired and aspired to preside over the affairs of Nigeria.

 

He was voted for on the condition that he is able to deliver on the mandate and when he fails to deliver, it is the duty of those who the Constitution had conferred upon, the necessary powers to ask him to step down. But rather than take the necessary actions prescribed by Section 143 of the 1999 Constitution, what we have seen is a Senate that has vowed to swim and drown with a President for whatever reasons.

 

How long shall the security deteriorate before the Senate rises to the occasion? How many more Nigerians are they expecting to be slaughtered before the Senate rises to the rescue? How many communities are they expecting to be sacked by the marauding herders and bandits before they take decisive action against the sitting government?

 

Section 143 prescribes impeachment for the President on grounds of gross misconduct and outlines nine steps to achieving it. Perhaps our distinguished Senators are hiding under the pretext that offences that constitute “gross misconduct” were not clearly spelt out in the Constitution.

 

But what can be more of a gross misconduct than when a Presidency becomes the mouth piece of foreigners who have invaded our country?

 

What can be more of a gross misconduct than when a Presidency watches while a whole country is being ravaged by insecurity?

 

What can be more of a gross misconduct than when citizens cry out for help and the father of the nation is never there to offer some empathy and take urgent actions to demonstrate that the buck stops on someone’s table?

 

If this lackadaisical attitude continues and our distinguished senators continue to play the ostrich , there might come a day when the citizens might rise up and chase them out of the chamber, just like we saw recently when some citizens of the United States invaded the US Congress to express their grievances against those they elected to represent them in the parliament.

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