The Nigerian Senate on Wednesday urged the federal government to review the ECOWAS protocol on free movement of people and goods to check irregular immigration and smuggling of firearms into the country.
The regional protocol ensures free mobility of ECOWAS citizens across member States.
Senators, while debating a motion on “General Insecurity in Nigeria,” blamed the worsening security situation across the country on irregular immigrants from neighbouring countries, who, they said, were terrorising Nigerians with the support of their local collaborators.
The lawmakers, in the motion sponsored by Senator Robert Ajayi Boroffice (APC, Ondo) and all other Senators, also cautioned against injecting ethnic sentiments into the security issue and frowned against ejecting Nigerians from any part of the country.
In its resolutions, the Red Chamber urged the federal government to enforce the laws against illegal possession of firearms and called for the deployment of technology to police borders and check irregular immigrants and smuggling of arms.
It also advised the State Governors to implement the National Livestock Transformation Plan, which is a modern scheme, designed to eliminate transhumance in order to prevent farmer-herder conflicts.
The initiative was to solve the problem of cattle grazing into and destroying farmlands.
In his lead debate, Senator Boroffice said even though many perpetrators of killings, kidnappings and banditry in Nigeria are irregular immigrants, they are harboured and nourished by Nigerian informants, collaborators and arms suppliers.
Senator Adamu Bulkachuwa (APC, Bauchi) said his constituents had been living with the problem of violent herders from neighbouring countries for the past 20 years and urged the security agents to identify and send them away.
“These foreign criminals are already in Nigeria and they must be identified and flushed out of the country. Insecurity must not be tribalise because criminality has no tribe. There are only two tribes, good and bad people,” he said.
Senator Eyinnaya Abaribe (PDP, Abia) said no Nigerian was being sent away from any part of the country.
“Criminals are being sent away from forest reserves where they are,” he said, cautioning against sending the wrong message on quit notices to particular ethnic group.
Senator Biodun Olujimi (PDP, Ekiti) called for a declaration of national emergency on insecurity, saying the same resources deployed to fight COVID-19 should also be extended to address insecurity.
“The death toll from insecurity is more than the figure from coronavirus,” she said.
Binos Yaroe (Adamawa), blamed the Fulani for the insecurity across the country, especially in the north, saying “every time kidnappers are arrested, seven or eight turn out to be Fulani”.
But Senate President Ahmad Lawan swiftly interjected and cautioned lawmakers against blaming any ethnic group for the crisis.
Senator Michael Opeyemi Bamidele (APC, Ekiti) said even though the constitution gives citizens the right to live and acquire property anywhere in the country, it was not the right of anyone to trespass on the land that belongs to any other persons.
Suleiman Kwari (APC Kaduna) and Tolulope Odebiyi (APC, Ogun) expressed concerns that Nigeria was gradually becoming a failed state, urging the federal government to act fast and save the country.
On amnesty for bandits, Chukwuka Utazi (PDP, Enugu) and Uba Sani (APC, Kaduna) kicked against negotiating with bandits, saying such soft landing for the criminals was aggravating security situation.
Uba Sani: “These bandits have been attacking our communities on daily basis. We have been able to liaise with the Nigerian Air Force, they expressed a lot of frustration on the way neighbouring states have been managing the crisis.
“Our position is that some neighbouring States in recent time have been negotiating with these criminals. We must work together as a team if we want to succeed on this issue of security because as far as I am concerned, you cannot compensate criminals.”