The House of Representatives has asked the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA) to coordinate the rescue of the over 200 students abducted by terrorists in Kuriga, a community in Kaduna State, North-west Nigeria.
The House reached the resolution during Tuesday’s plenary session.
The resolution followed the adoption of a motion of urgent public importance moved by Ahmed Munir.
The motion
In the motion, Mr Munir narrated some of the ordeals the people of Kuriga have gone through in the past couple of weeks. He said Kaduna State is now the centre of violence perpetrated by criminal gangs.
“Two months back, this ugly menace occurred in the same community where a school principal, Malam Abu Sufyan, was killed days earlier and his wife and baby abducted. The wife and baby were later rescued in a successful joint security operation on 3rd February 2024,” Mr Munir said in his motion.
He added that violence is taking place despite the trillions of naira injected into the defence sector in the last couple of years.
“There has been no respite as the bulk of the actions by security personnel are reactionary rather than proactive,” he said.
In the motion, the lawmaker also knocked the executive due to the lack of utilisation of the Safe Schools Initiative.
He said the government is yet to adequately utilise the initiative to protect schools 10 years after the launch of the programme.
“The fund is to be managed by the Federal Ministry of Finance, for the protection of students and teachers in areas prone to security threats,” Mr Munir said, adding that “a decade has gone by and yet the utilisation and impact of this fund is at best questionable.”
Mr Munir said most of the security agencies working on the prevention of terror attacks have been working in isolation without proper coordination.
“Kaduna State borders the North-western states of Zamfara, Katsina and Kano, borders the North-eastern State of Bauchi and the North-central States of Plateau, Nasarawa, Abuja and Niger and therefore an isolated plan for just Kaduna alone will be ineffective without taking cognisance of border communities and even neighbouring countries of Cameroon, Chad, Niger, Benin Republic and the wider Sahel,” the lawmaker said.
Following Mr Munir’s motion, the House resolved to mandate ONSA to coordinate military operations that include boots on the ground land and aerial sweep of locations that include but not limited to Kuyambana Forest in Zamfara, Kamuka Forest in Kaduna, Falgore Forest in Kano, Borgu and Zugurma Forests in Niger State.
Also, the House directed ONSA to fully utilise the National Counter Terrorism Centre and the National Centre for the Control of Small Arms and Light Weapons.
Furthermore, it mandated the Committees on National Security, Finance and Legislative Compliance to ensure compliance with the resolutions.
The motion was not debated, and when it was put to vote by Speaker Abbas Tajudeen, the support for the motion was unanimous.