President of the Senate, Alhaji Ahmed Lawan, has acknowledged the important role played by the 8th National Assembly under Dr Abubakar Bukola Saraki’s leadership in saving Nigeria from being expelled from the global body of the Egmont Group four years ago.
This, he noted, was done through the passing of the Nigeria Financial Intelligence Unit ,NFIU ,on 7 March 2018.
Team@orientactualmags.com learned Lawan said this during the programme organized by the Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission, ICPC, in Abuja on Friday.
It had as its theme, ‘National Policy Dialogue on Corruption and Insecurity in Nigeria’.
The Senate President added that legislators had continued to support the efforts of the government to tackle insecurity in the country, adding that in the past three years, the National Assembly had ensured that appropriation for defence and security was improved upon every year.
‘Security situation in the country has improved in the last one month. Only recently, President Muhammadu Buhari gave a marching order to the Armed Forces to extinguish bandits, kidnappers and other criminal agents that are against the state and her citizens, by December 2022.
This administration is committed to achieving this set target. Accordingly, the past few weeks have seen security agencies flushing out terrorists from their hideouts in Kaduna Birnin-gwari axis, Katsina, Zamfara and Sokoto. Similar results were recorded in Niger, where, like in Kaduna, the Nigerian Air force neutralized many terrorists’ he said.
The Senate President noted that the National Assembly while looking into the possibility of unmasking the perpetrators of insecurity in the country, realized the need for an anti-corruption law to stop illicit financial flows suspected to be funding routes for insecurity in Nigeria.
‘The 8th Assembly passed the Nigeria Financial Intelligence Unit Bill, which is one of the major anti-corruption laws that saved the country from being expelled from the global body of the Egmont Group.
In the same vein, the 9th Assembly, working closely with security and law enforcement agencies to further strengthen their capacity to withstand unscrupulous elements involved in criminal and terrorist activities against the state, passed three bills aimed at combating money laundering, terrorist financing and the proceeds of crime.
These three bills are in tandem with this administration’s commitment to fighting corruption and curb insurgency in the country’ Lawan said.
He noted that insecurity had become a worldwide phenomenon, adding that Nigeria was no exception in this regard, the country, he added, had faced the challenge of insecurity, especially insurgency since 2009.
Lawan added that despite the government’s efforts to curtail the menace, it had developed other manifestations that had slowed down the sustained government’s efforts to tackle the problem.
‘Insecurity has placed an enormous demand on our country’s human and material resources, particularly the emergence of the Boko Haram insurgents in the North-East and banditry in the North-West. Several other security challenges have since emerged afterward.
We have been faced with cattle rustling and farmer-herder clashes in the Middle-Belt, secessionist agitations in the South-East, militancy in the South-South, and some of these have now spilled over to other parts of the country.
The span of these security challenges have profoundly tasked this administration and indeed the nation, and stretched our security and law enforcement apparatus which remains determined and has withstood these challenges with utmost gallantry.
But as I have always said, the challenges of our security infrastructure are the concern of all of us and not just of those in government alone. Indeed, this policy dialogue is showing us that dealing with the ugliness of insecurity in Nigeria require more than the deployment of military might.
Hence, we must look at social and economic vices like corruption that enable and even propagate insecurity. As lawmakers, we look forward to the eventual policy brief that will be shared hereafter to guide the nation’s policy direction in ending insecurity in Nigeria’ he added-Team@orientactualmags.com
Do you have any information you wish to share with us? Do you want us to cover your event or programme? Kindly send SMS to 08059100286, 09094171980. Thank you
