Boko Haram: Immigration loses 400 officers
No fewer than 400 officers and men of the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) have been killed by Boko Haram insurgents, it was learnt yesterday.
There have been 11 jail breaks across the country believed to have been carried out by insurgents in which many prison officers were killed, Senator Atiku Bagudu said yesterday.
Bagudu is the chair, Senate Committee on Interior. He spoke in Abuja.
He said the figures were given to members of his committee when they went on oversight function.
He noted that though the country’s Northeast borders had posed some problems in an attempt to curtail the activities of insurgents, the deployment of technology and the increment in personnel would check the menace.
He said: “We need to give more arms to the prison service. The prison service should not be considered a secondary arm of the security system, it is a major one.”
He noted that the failure of the Senate to transfer Prisons Service from the Exclusive List to the Concurrent List during the Constitution amendment reflected the fear the lawmakers have for state police because prison officials also bear arms.
Bagudu said the country’s border with Cameroon has always posed a problem.
He said: “Chadians coming to the northeast are always armed and use firearms, because Chad had been at war.”
He added: “We are members of the ECOWAS group of nations. We are committed to free entry and exit. Even if we seal our borders, we can’t stop ECOWAS members from coming into our country.
“Fencing four thousand miles border will be very difficult. Technology has changed the way we monitor the borders, with increased use of technology and more personnel, we can achieve more with less spending.”
He also commented on the voting on amendment to Section 29 of the Constitution which defined the age when a person comes to a full age, with an addition spelling out that a woman who is married is deemed to be of full age.
He said: “The argument that brought about this furore is the renunciation of citizenship. There was an attempt to remove its second element which relates to a woman who is married and that failed.
“It is a total misrepresentation that the Senate has approved child marriage. Marriage is regulated by the Marriage Act, Islamic laws and Customary Law. What you find missing in these laws is the absence of the definition of the age of marriage.
Around the world, marriage below the age of 18 is allowed. I am not saying that it is right, but it is allowed. We were not debating child marriage, and that is not what we contemplated.
Senator Akin Odunsi, (Ogun West) who also spoke on the controversial issue, noted that the Senate did not create the Section.
Odunsi said the provision was extant in the Constitution and that the Review Committee recommended that it be removed, but the Senate could not raise the number of votes to delete it.
The lawmaker noted that public reaction tended to indicate that the Senate inserted the clause into the Constitution.
He insisted that it was wrong to say that the Senate passed a law on child marriage.
On Local Government autonomy, Senator Odunsi said although the Senate voted against the recommendation, there was still need for the third tier of government to be well funded so that they could meet their obligations to the people.
“Funding of local governments at the moment is inadequate. I think we can only expect that the state governments should adequately finance local government. This is because they are the closest to the people and they need to carry out their responsibilities to the people,” he said.
He explained that most Senators felt that granting local autonomy amounted to creating a state within a state.
Get more trends like this
Subscribe to our mailing list and get latest Nigeria trends in your inbox.