The House of Representatives, in response to the over 200 students who were kidnapped by suspected bandits last week in the state’s Chikun Local Government Area, demanded on Tuesday that the Office of the National Security Adviser coordinate intelligence and security operations across the nation, especially in Kaduna State.
The lawmakers also voiced concern that Nigerians’ expectations for the country’s security situation were not being met, despite the National Assembly having approved N3.25 trillion in spending on defense and security.Concurrently, members of the Green Chamber called for limitations on small and light weapons because of the nation’s increasing insecurity in certain regions.
Before voting on the resolution, the House passed a motion on urgent public importance titled “Urgent need to tackle the abhorrent abduction of over 200 students in Kuriga community of Chikun and secure lives and property in Kaduna State.”Ahmed Munir, a member representing the Lere Federal Constituency in Kaduna State, made the motion.
More than two hundred students were taken hostage when armed people broke into Kuriga Community’s Local Education Authority Primary School and Government Secondary School on March 7, 2024.
Leading the discussion, the lawmaker mentioned that, only two months prior, a school principal named Abu Sufyan was killed and his wife and child kidnapped. He went on to say that the wife and child were later saved on February 3, 2024, during a successful joint security operation.
“The House is aware that gunmen attacked worshippers in a mosque at Angwar Makera, Kwasakwasa Community in the Birnin Gwari Local Government Area of Kaduna State on Friday, March 8, 2024, with two persons declared dead,” he said.
“This worrisome trend of violence is seeping into other parts of the state affecting persons of all religious and ethnic backgrounds.”
The majority of security personnel’s actions are reactive rather than proactive, he said, so despite “the N3.25trn allocated to the defence and security sector on drones and other military equipment that could have tracked, located, and rescued victims, there has been no respite.
“The Office of the National Security Officer was given a mandate by the House to “coordinate and galvanize all security and intelligence networks to develop and execute a proactive master plan to restore security with defined plans on coordinating with neighboring countries” after the motion was approved.
“The plan must include boots on ground land and aerial sweep of locations that include but not limited to Kuyambana forest in Zamfara, Kamuka forest in Kaduna, Falgore forest in Kano, Borgu and Zugurma forests in Niger State.”
Additionally, the lawmakers asked the Office of the NSA to “make sure that the Acts passed for the National Center for the Control of Small Arms and Light Weapons and the National Counter-Terrorism Center fully serve the purpose for which they were established by revisiting and optimizing them.”