ISWAP: Group urges Lawan-led NASS to rally round PMB, military on war against terrorism

The National Assembly under the leadership of Ahmad Lawan has been urged to rally round President Muhammadu Buhari and the Nigerian military on their war against terrorism.

One Nigeria Movement gave this charge at an advocacy campaign meeting for tagged “nothing is too much to be spent on security” at the Unity Fountain, Abuja on Tuesday.

The group urged the national assembly to make laws that would clampdown on collaborators and financiers of terror in the country.

Comrade Ibrahim Dalla, who spoke on behalf of the group, said the 9th National Assembly must make laws to deal with individuals and organizations that finance and support terrorism.

His statement reads below.

Nigeria has a unique opportunity of having a revamped National Assembly with the resumption of new members. This means that some of the old guards that had made the legislature into personal business stands have been sacked, returned to their constituencies that they represented without doing the bidding of those that gave them their mandate.

It is reassuring with this new set of lawmakers that the bad blood occasioned by snatched leadership of the Senate and House of Representatives is an experience that will not be repeated in this 9th Assembly.

The implication is that this National Assembly has no wiggle room to argue that it is unable to discharge its duty to Nigerians because of infighting and leadership tussle. From the much that is discernable in the public space, there is nothing standing in the way of the lawmakers to perform.

It is therefore an auspicious time to re-present to the 9th Assembly our demand for security and security spending to get the much needed attention. In layman’s term, it is glaring that any other thing the lawmakers legislate on or approve budget for will amount to a waste if the environment is not conducive enough for their implementation or execution.

Citizens will also not be able to derive benefits from whatever the remaining of the country’s budget is spent on if security of their constituency cannot be guaranteed.
The reality on ground today is that all of the country’s security apparatus are stretched beyond their capacity because the multiple security breaches that they are addressing. Never in the history of the country has the Nigerian Army being stretched to the current limit with operations in multiple states of the northeast, northwest, north-central, south-east and south-south geo-political zones.

The police are under pressure from tackling kidnapping rings that have popped up in more spots across the country than they have personnel to deploy for. The Nigerian Air Force is being scrambled to provide air support on a scale it is incapable of catching up with while the Navy is similarly challenged with tackling sea piracy, bandits, illegal bunkering, militancy and kidnapping.

These well-known challenges notwithstanding, there has been no increased funding to the respective agencies to re-tool and deploy modern assets to combat the crimes in question. Our military and security personnel are still expected to fight contemporary crimes with colonial era equipment.

It is impractical that those making the decision on what these agencies can buy are driving year 2020 cars with all the sophisticated gadgetry while troop barely have outmoded binoculars to track the movement of terrorists in the desert.

It is an absurdity that the mobile phones that decision makers have in dozens and even buy scores for friends and family cost more than the weapons that could be put in the hands of troops risking their lives to fight Islamic State terrorists in the north-east.

A single lunch or dinner outing of some decision makers can feed an entire unit to the point where there morale will touch the skies. Yet they are expected to give their best in the midst of this logistics and morale challenges.

We have come to the point where it is expedient to prick the conscience of our legislators. It is time to for them to acknowledge that the entire country can actually come together to tackle the menace of terror only if they provide the needed legislative oversight and budgetary approval that will rapidly reposition the Armed Forces, Police and other relevant security agencies. We cannot continue to repeat the same cycle of inadequate funding and expect different outcomes.

We are telling our lawmakers today that “NOTHING IS TOO MUCH TO BE SPENT ON SECURITY.” It is a message we expect them to take to heart and act on it by immediately doing the needful. To make it easier for them to key into what we have articulated, we are condensing our message into a five point agenda that can lead to quick wins for our military/security organizations to defeat terrorism. These are:

This is no time to paying lip service to the war on terrorism like the 8th Assembly did. It is pointless moving motions and passing resolutions when the organizations that will be responsible for the implementation of the actions resolved on are not properly and adequately equipped to perform their functions. Any call made by the Senate or House of Representatives for the military and security organizations to fight terrorism and crime today will amount to asking the personnel of these agencies to go into fist combats in a war that the terrorists are coming to with anti-aircraft guns and rocket launchers. Instead of paying lip service to the counter-terrorism war, our dear lawmakers must take realistic actions to better fund these organizations.

It will be most uncharitable to delay, obstruct or prevent improved funding for the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria because of petty politics. We call it petty politics because terrorists do not make distinction of who to attack based on political affiliation – they attack and do so rabidly such that persons of all political leanings have fallen victims of their evil. If the National Assembly members continue to foot drag in improving funding for the operations against these killers, everyone will be at risk. Our lawmakers must therefore unite across party line to recognize this threat to Nigeria and act in the interest of the fatherland and not political affiliations that have repeatedly and consistently proven transient.

Not only must the members of the National Assembly eschew ethnicity and religious bigotry but they must take the additional step of criminalizing any attempt to play the ethno-religious card in the course of seeking solution to Nigeria’s war against terrorism. We are aware of past experiences when some members will cynically use ethnic balance as a basis to deny funding for the counter-terrorism war by saying money spent on security will only favour one region of the country. We have seen today that the problem will eventually become worse if resources are not marshalled to counter it while still confined to one geo-political zone of the country.

Our lawmakers must note that the requested attitudinal change will yield results faster when they place timely budgeting and financing for the military and other security agencies a priority. We have made our own findings so we task the National Assembly members to research what countries spend on their defence and security. We recommend that they look at three categories of countries: a) countries with similar population with Nigeria b) countries that have terrorism problems like Nigeria and c) countries that fall among the top ten economies in Africa.

They will see that Nigeria fare poorly on all counts when these countries are reviewed relative to what they spend on their security and what Nigeria spends on security. We invite the Senators of Representatives to note that time is of essence so they need not wait till the 2020 budget as there is room to make a special budget to address this glaring shortcoming.

The lawmakers must go a step further by using their oversight powers to ensure that the Ministry of Finance does not delay the release of funds that have been appropriated for security and defence purposes. In fact, delay of the release of funds for budget that have been passed and signed into law in this regard should be treated as a crime.

Laws must be made to clamp down on collaborators and financiers of terror
The 9th National Assembly must make laws to deal with individuals and organizations that finance and support terrorism. This is necessary given the constant evolution of the nature of terrorism. The existing legislation against terrorism should also be reviewed to reflect whatever shortcomings have been discovered in their application.

It is an exercise the National Assembly must embrace with the understanding that the scourge of terrorism should have been fully tamed by now if the existing legislation were adequate.

Dear compatriots, these are our demands to both chambers of the National Assembly. We pray that they adopt this 5-point agenda and incorporate it into their work plan for the lifetime of this Assembly.

Should this Assembly fail to improve defence funding its members can be guaranteed that some of them will return to their constituencies to face the demon of terrorism that would have failed to tame.