A member of the House of Representatives, Hon. Nasir Ahmed has called on President Mohammadu Buhari to sack his National Security Adviser, Mohammed Babagana Monguno.
Ahmed noted that Buhari had replaced several service chiefs since 2015 and “only one person has not been changed and that is the National Security Adviser. What is the job of the National Security Adviser? Do we have a National Security Adviser?
“Are we saying that the Nigerian Army, the Nigerian Navy, the Nigerian Air Force, the Nigeria Police and the DSS, with all the training that they have had; with all the international training that they have gone for and peacekeeping missions, that a ragtag army of 16, 17, 18-year-old boys are more powerful than them?
“This madness has to stop. You travel by road, you are kidnapped. You go by train, you are kidnapped. Last week, an airport was attacked by bandits. You sit at home, you are kidnapped. You send your children to school, they are kidnapped. A few weeks ago, somebody was kidnapped in a hospital. You can be kidnapped right in this chamber.”
While the Deputy Speaker, Ahmed Wase, who presided over the session, called for calm, the lawmaker noted that Monguno had been the NSA for seven years and wondered why he remained in office despite the removal of the last set of service chiefs.
“The only thing that I will say is that if service chiefs could be changed at will, I see no reason why the person that they report to and that is supposed to oversee them…I see no reason why he cannot be replaced. Nobody is indispensable,” Ahmed stated.
A member from Borno State, Haruna Mshelia, disclosed that Boko Haram was still unleashing terror on the state and called for drastic action by the government.
“In fact, there is a local government (area) called Guzamala in Borno State; up till now, there is not a single soul living there. And in my constituency, which is in the southern part, recently, three communities were attacked. This problem is all over Nigeria but let us not forget the initial epicentre of the insurgency, which is the North-East,” Mshelia said.
Another member from Borno, Ahmed Jaha, decried that he had been a lone voice on the security crisis in the North-East and recalled that the Nigerian Army got N420bn in the 2020 budget, with only N16bn for capital expenditure, and another N100bn allocated to it for Operation Lafiya Dole.
The lawmaker said in 2021, N460bn was budgeted for the Army, with only N29bn going to capital projects. He added that the Army had a budget of N571bn for 2022, while capital expenditure was N37bn.
The lawmaker also stated that the office of the NSA should not be occupied by someone with a rank lower than a General, noting that a Major General would find it hard to issue orders to a Lieutenant General.
