The National Working Committee (NWC) of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) on Thursday stormed the National Assembly, Abuja to express its deep concern over the worsening security challenges ravaging the country and the near anarchy the country is heading to.
The delegation led by its National Chairman, Dr. Olu Agunloye who converged on the National Assembly’s main entrance, presented a 4-point ‘Strategic intervention agenda on national security crisis’ to the leadership of the Senate and House of Representatives for legislative consideration with a view to proffering lasting solution to the myriad of security challenges facing the country.
Addressing newsmen at the main entrance of the complex along with other members, Dr Agunloye who expressed grave concerns over the state of the nation, called on President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration to take proactive steps by ensuring that crimes and criminalities be tackled frontally and government should demand judiciary accountability and responsibility and stop condoning corruption in the judicial system.
According to him, “the SDP is deeply concerned about the worsening security situation across the country, occasioned by unabating reign of terror and actions of insurrectionists, agitators and outright criminals which have crippled economic activities in the country, significantly battered peace and crashed the national social architecture.
“As this persists, more and more comments, analysis, reactions and counter-reactions pour in and the damages to the national foundations continue as the country inches more into full-blown anarchy or civil war
Our party has studied the state of the national security crisis, its multiple faces, the targets and modes of operation, its immediate and remote causes, and the ineffective ways these have been handled over since 1998 and concluded that Nigeria must return to people-centred social justice principles of social justice to emerge as a united single country.
“The message of SDP at this junction is that Nigeria must return to the basics and no longer follow the same decadent and despotic approaches again.
“It is imperative for Nigeria to revert to people-centred core principles of social justice to contain insecurity crisis, curtail political oppressions and stem the tide of agitations for disintegration and move forward as one Nigeria.
“Building national security is a collective responsibility of all the critical stakeholders in Nigeria and the most important stakeholders are the people and only people-centred programmes can redeem the glory of Nigeria.
“There was indeed a time when the country imbibed a people-centred social democracy and elected a Social Democratic Party candidate, Chief MKO Abiola in a free and fair election which was devoid of ethnic or religious considerations; and is still considered the best in Nigeria so far. It is certainly time to go back to people-centred basics to avoid total collapse.”
As part of its contribution towards finding lasting solutions to the lingering crises, he disclosed that SDP NWC would deliver a people-centred non-partisan four-point agenda of intervention to all the 109 senators and 360 members of the House of Representatives while SDP State Working Committees would deliver the same agenda to all state assemblies with individual letters to all the 975 members of the Assemblies across Nigeria.
According to him, “this is expected to re-establish the connections with the people of Nigeria, pass this non-partisan agenda to ail people of Nigeria and engage them in finding lasting solutions
“With this Agenda, the Social Democratic Party, SDP has essentially demanded that Nigerian lawmakers work with the executive and judiciary arms of government, civil societies, organized private sector, religious leaders, traditional rulers, traditionists and other stakeholders to take steps to save Nigeria before it is too late.”
While urging the ruling party, the All Progressives Congress (APC) to admit the widespread crisis and tackle them decisively, Dr. Agunloye posited that the “Gederal Government has legal responsibilities to expand the security apparatus including recalling military and paramilitary veterans, increase the wages and welfare of security and law enforcement officers and enhance information and intelligence gathering to be more effective and efficient.
“That because the government appears overwhelmed, it should explore transnational and regional cooperation in the fight against an insurgency while firm and decisive actions should be taken always to avert the spread of anarchy in the country.”
He also admonished the government on the need to have a “deeper understanding of issues in all cases and especially in making decisions while all its actions should be rooted on well-thought-through processes based on information, data and intelligence. That crimes and criminalities should be tackled frontally and Government should demand judiciary accountability and responsibility and stop condoning corruption in the judicial system.”
Also speaking in the same vein, the National Secretary of the party, Alhaji Shehu Musa Gabam, said that the party took the noble decision to submit its position paper to the National Assembly because of its belief in one Nigeria and the conviction that no situation no matter how bad was irredeemable.
According to him, “we are not here with a crowd to protest against the government of the day, we are not here to find faults but we are here to speak to the representatives of the country, this is our country, we are here to submit possible solutions to the multifaceted problems facing the nation, let our lawmakers sit down and motivate our security force to do what is expected of them.
“2023 general Election is fast approaching, as it is now, people are being kidnapped on daily basis, people will not be able to travel to their different states to cast their ballot, the Election is being threatened, this should be a thing of concern to all and sundry.”
Addressing the delegation on behalf of the leadership, the Chief Security Officer (CSO) to the National Assembly, Sir Comorde Sani Abdullahi (rtd), commended the initiative of the party, saying that their requests would be addressed accordingly.
He said that both the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives would have personally given them audience but for their engagement with the nation’s Security Chiefs which bothered on the worsening security situation in the country.
