Insecurity: Speaker Dogara cautions against buck passing, calls for collective responsibility

By Musa Adamu

Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, has cautioned against the ongoing blame game among the leaders as a result of pervasive insecurity situation facing the country.
Speaking yesterday while welcoming his colleagues back from Christmas and new year break, Dogara warned that what the country needed at the moment was not buck passing but an acceptance of responsibility by the leaders for the breakdown of security in the country.
Condemning ‘the senseless” killings in Rivers, Benue, Taraba, Kaduna, Zamfara, Adamawa, Edo and other states while the House was in break, Dogara regretted that Nigeria was now being painted red with the blood of the “innocents on account of unremitting bedlam callously promoted by cold hearted merchants of death.”
Conveying the condolences of the House to the governments, people, and especially families of those who lost loved ones in these primitive, mindless and despicable rounds of bloodletting across our dear country, warned as leaders they cannot fold their hands while things got out hand.
He said: “At these moments of intense outpouring of grief across the nation, it is important that we shun buck passing and accept responsibility for these wanton killings without which we will never find a solution to this evil. We cannot afford to fold our hands and pretend that all is well with our country.”
Warning that they cannot throw up their hands in defeat, he emphasized that “We have a responsibility to all Nigerians regardless of creed or ethnicity in line with the constitutionally stated primary purpose of the government we serve in, which is securing the welfare including the lives and property of our people.
“This we must do by ensuring that every law abiding Nigerian is protected where ever he chooses to live in the country and everyone who is up in arms against our citizens is quickly brought to justice where ever they are in the country. That there are no sanctuaries anywhere in the country for killers and other hardened criminals who feed on the blood of our people.”
Warning that violence only begets violence, he said their job as leaders was to hold people together and ensure that no one or group was allowed to foist the reign of tragedy and group polarization on our dear nation.
“Those who pride themselves in violence must be reminded of the self defeating nature of violence: the fact that violence only begets violence and that true victory has never been won by violence. It was Mahatma Gandhi who delivered a timeless rebuke to the fools who worship brute force by reminding them that, “victory attained by violence is tantamount to a defeat for it is momentary”.
“We have to preach this message to our people who must not only accept the inevitability of conflict as well as the necessity for tolerance but must learn not to pursue conflict violently but democratically, in ways that result in compromise and consensus as the culture of democracy demands.”
Notifying the House that President Buhari had briefed the President of the Senate and himself on what government was doing about the situation, he advised the government to revisit resolutions passed by the House on kidnapping, Boko Haram Terrorism and sundry security matters.
“These resolutions are more of a wakeup call to the Executive on its Constitutional obligations in governance. The accentuation of violent crimes is a chronic symptom of defects in our security architecture which we must fix. I therefore call on Mr. President to apply maximum sanctions on public officers who are derelict in the performance of their duties.”
He also called on the security related Committees in the House to aggressively conduct oversight of the various MDA’s and institutions handling security matters, to detect lapses in their operations and pro-actively ensure compliance with approved funds and procurement of appropriate equipment.
He mandated the House security-related Committees to conduct a follow-up action on all the issues canvassed and get back to the House.