By Godwin Okoro
The House of Representatives yesterday asked President Muhammadu Buhari to harness all constitutional power within his disposal to address the security challenges currently facing the country.

This followed a motion of urgent public importance brought to the floor of the House by Rep Abubakar Salame (APC, Sokoto) asking the President to set up a national task force that will be saddled with the responsibility of addressing the security challenges in the country.

But his motion met stiff resistance from members who argued that asking the President to set up a special task force on security will amount to usurping the powers of the security agencies as enshrined in the 1999 constitution as amended.

Members argued that while the motion was ideal in view of the current challenges in the country, the prayers seeking a task force were unconstitutional would amount to a nullity.

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Deputy Speaker, Rep Ahmed Idris Wase disagreed with the sponsor of the motion that because a special task force was set up for COVID 19, the same thing should be done for security, stressing that the offices of security chiefs were specially mentioned in the constitution with their functions.
Wase argued that in passing resolutions, the House must be careful not to pass resolutions that are not implementable because they run contrary to the constitution.

Chairman of the House Committee on Air Force, Rep. Shehu Koko (APC, Kebbi) said such a move would not be in the interest of the country.

Koko said “It is not the best for this country. This country has well-established institutions saddled with the responsibility to do all the duties to secure this country.

Also, Rep. Victor Mela, (APC, Gombe) said while nobody is going to oppose the issue of security, there was a need to strategies in other to address the challenges at hand.
He said “We are faced with this challenge and it is important that we strategize rather than making choice. This country has experts in security. Everything the motion carries, it has been carried before. Mr. Speaker no implementation from the executive.

“There is nothing new in the motion from all that we have talked about concerning the insecurity in this country. What is not there is the sacking of heads of these agencies.

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“I think it is important the issues of insecurity be treated with utmost care and the suggestion from the motion it ought not to be because they know what to do and when to it, but unfortunately we are faced with this issue, and we do not know when the problem is.

“It is high time Mr president looked into his advisers, why do we keep having the occurrence of this insecurity. To say something about this motion, I would have loved the ranking member to have said to revamp the security architecture of this country. Not giving them what to or how to do it.”
Deputy Minority Leader, Rep. Toby Okechukwu said it was clear that existing institutions in the country have failed, saying “we cannot be talking about lack of synergy, and we are still creating institutions that would further enhance the lack of synergy.
“I believe there are structures and institutions that have been created. It is for us to ask them to do their job. If you have to cut off a criminal phone network, the simple thing is to get to the Minister of Communications.
“There is usually, a theatre commander for any operation, and the military can set it up with ease. My amendment is that all the prayers should be deleted and that this house calls on Mr President as Commander in Chief to do his job and save Nigeria from this malady.”