Meanwhile, some members of the House of Representatives have proposed that the National Assembly be shut down to force the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), to wake up to his responsibility of ensuring the protection of life and property.
This is just as a lawmaker called for the resignation or sacking of the National Security Adviser, Maj.-Gen. Babagana Monguno (retd.), saying he should have been sacked along with the last set of service chiefs.
The House cut short its plenary on Thursday following an extended debate on the growing insecurity in the country, during which emotions ran high in the chamber.
Items on the Order Paper for the day, which contains the agenda for each plenary, were stepped down after the lawmakers, mostly members of the ruling All Progressives Congress, spent over one hour to criticise the Buhari regime and the security agencies.
A member of the House, Shehu Balarabe, had moved a motion of urgent public importance on the killings in Kaduna.
The Majority Leader, Alhassan Ado-Doguwa, noted that he would use his “emotion-laden voice” to speak in his capacity as leader of the House and the “ambassador of the government on this floor.”
Ado-Doguwa said, “You can see how this chamber is thrown into disquiet and in an emotionally-disturbed manner. When you have a government in place, the major responsibility of that government, especially a democratic one, which was elected by the people, is to ensure safety of lives and properties of innocent citizens.
“When things like this continue on a daily basis, those of us who are representatives of the government will become speechless. I have to repeat: we become speechless in the discharge of our duties here to defend actions of the government.
“This is an elected government under a popular democracy but we continue, day in day out…killings, massacre, banditry and armed robbery left, right and centre. This is just a report of one local government area out of the 774 in the federation.”
The Majority Leader asked why several parts of Kaduna State had been under attack despite the existence of several military and paramilitary institutions and bases in the state, “the highest number you can count in the northern part of the country.”
Ado-Doguwa pointed out that the National Assembly had always appropriated more funds for the security agencies, while relevant committees had been following up on the use of the funds in the implementation of the budget.
He recommended that Nigerians be allowed to arm themselves since the security agencies had failed.
“Let Nigerians organise themselves in the name of civil defence. Let them organise and arrange the defence of their own innocent souls. If the responsibility of the government and the security agencies cannot be carried out democratically, everyone has cause to defend themselves,” he added.
