Banditry: Senate calls for review of security strategies

The Senate has urged President Bola Tinubu to thoroughly review and evaluate strategies deployed in tackling insecurity.

The lawmakers also urged the President to consider deployment of more forces to the troubled North-West of the country in order to ensure the protection of lives and property.

This was a resolution arrived at Thursday’s plenary which was presided by the Deputy Senate President, Jibrin Barau.

The motion on ‘Urgent Need to Review Security Approach in Addressing Banditry Attacks in Katsina, Sokoto, Zamfara, Kaduna and Kebbi states in the North-West of Nigeria’, was sponsored by Senator Sani Zangon Daura representing Katsina North, alongside 10 others.

The motion lamented that the same set of known bandits are moving in a circle in all the seven states of the North-West without interdiction by troops.

He said collaboration and coordination among the state governments, relevant stakeholders and troops were not good enough, hence a workable strategy must be worked out to deal with the situation as the zone has been taken over completely.

The upper chamber urged Tinubu to seize the opportunity of the North-West governors’ willingness to support workable and acceptable initiatives that “promote peace, security and development in the region” to deal with crime and criminality in the troubled region.

In his contribution, Senator Abba Moro, representing Benue South, urged the government at the centre to double effort in tackling bandits, stressing that the situation was degenerating day by day.

Moro rejected the assertion by the Deputy Senate President, Barau, that Tinubu was doing well in the area of tackling insecurity. “It will amount to hypocrisy if we sit here to say Mr President is doing well,” Moro said.

After other senators made their contributions, condemning the high rate of banditry in the entire North-West, the Senate further sent prayers to the military and other security agencies to be proactive and innovative in their strategies to secure farmlands, so that farmers can return to their farms.