Zamfara State Governor, Abdulaziz Yari
Disturbed by recent killings in Kizara, a village in Zamfara State, the Senate Thursday implored President Goodluck Jonathan to deploy more security personnel in the state as well as other states facing security challenges.
The Senate’s appeal followed a motion by Senator Basheer Mohammed (Kano Central), urging the parliament to stop alleged moves by Zamfara State Governor, Abdulaziz Yari, to arm vigilante groups in the state with rifles in his decision to address insecurity in the state.
Mohammed, who said he understood that the intention of the governor to arm vigilante groups was to check the insecurity in the state, added that the action could worsen the security crisis rocking the state as members of the groups he sought to arm were neither trained nor authorised to carry arms.
He said instead of setting up alternative or rival security agencies, there was the need to recognise the federal government’s current efforts and policy “mopping up light and heavy weapons in the hands of members of the public in compliance with ECOWAS convention on the proliferation of small arms and light weapons.”
As debate on the motion went on, Senator Ali Ndume (Borno South) revealed to the chagrin of many that about half of the 109 senators in the Senate own guns.
But feeling uncomfortable with the statement, Deputy Senate President, Senator Ike Ekweremadu, who presided over the sitting, quickly asked Ndume to retract the statement, saying he could not substantiate the insinuation.
According to him, Ndume has not searched the house of any senator to ascertain if senators own arms or not.
In his attempt to retract the statement, Ndume said he was not portraying the senators as indiscriminately possessing arms, rather he was only emphasising that concentration should centre only on those who possess arms for harmful purposes and not on those who possess it for self-defence or for hunting.
The senators however rejected Mohammed’s request asking the president to prevail on Yari to drop his decision to arm vigilante groups in Zamfara because there was no proof to affirm that the governor had such an intention now.
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