A former governor of Bayelsa State and senator representing Bayelsa West in the National Assembly, Sen. Henry Seriake Dickson, has called on President Muhammadu Buhari to urgently convene a special meeting of the National Council of State, as a way of finding an enduring solution to the problem of insecurity now threatening the very existence of the nation.
Speaking on FOCUS, a flagship current affairs programme on the African Independent Television (AIT), on Monday morning, Sen. Dickson said such a meeting would be an Expanded National Council of State meeting, opined that invitation to the meeting should be extended to former presidents, key members of the Judiciary, leading lights of the National Assembly, both past and present, as well as key political, traditional and regional leaders.
He said “Such nationalistic and non-partisan meeting has become inevitable now that it is very clear that only a genuine presidential initiative can address the current problems of banditry, kidnapping, insurgency, the herdsmen challenge and the general insecurity in the country.”
According to Sen. Dickson, the solution to the problems currently bedeviling the unity of Nigeria lies with the president.
After such a no-holds-barred meeting, the former governor said, President Buhari should then address the nation on the outcome, and the way forward. “He should also begin to visit the different parts of the country, beginning with the South East, to reassure Nigerians… it is not to just bring people to Abuja and address them. He should go to their region, spend a night or two there. Sleep there, as a way of demonstrating his love for the people, and also giving them a sense of belonging.
He said President Buhari has “to go beyond partisanship, and altruistically exercise the enormous power the subsisting constitution confers on him, to be able to confront the problems.”
Sen. Dickson also said the President and his circle of advisers would have to view the concept of restructuring and devolution of powers with less suspicion if he is to ever address the current problems sustainably.
According to him, “Restructuring does not mean dismemberment of the nation and that if the Presidency was too scared of going the whole hog of restructuring, it could always start from such low hanging fruits as devolution of powers. He said this had become more pressing considering that there is too much power concentrated in the presidency, and that this is adversely affecting efficiency.”
The senaptor particularly identified the issue of a federal police, which he said has fallen flat in the face of the burgeoning insecurity across the states of the country.
Sen. Dickson, who himself isa formerformer policeman and who had represented Bayelsa State as a two-term member of the House of Representatives, “the police has over the years, been gradually destroyed by the concept of federal police.” He said this has led to the ineadequate funding of the police and the gradual bulkanisation of police functions into the FRSC, NDLEA, EFCC etc.
He also identified the failure of the federal police to adequately protect the states and constituent communities as the reason for the mushrooming of such regional security arrangementbos as Amotekun, EbubeAgu and all manners of local vigilance groups, with attendant misinterpretations and mutual suspicion.
Noting that the Federal Government has increasingly veered off from its main duties of security, foreign relations etc, into such ridiculous engagements as building culverts in villages and sharing of toilet papers to villagers, Sen. Dickson challenged “President Buhari to show presidential leadership – not partisanship.”
He reasoned that even if the president is reluctant to convene an inter-party parley on the situation, he could, at least, start by revisiting the Nasir el-Rufai committee report of the APC, and start from there.
He said the problem at hand needed a lot of presidential initiatives, “which we are not seeing much of at the moment.”
According to him, such initiatives do not only require “some doses of constructive presidential bullying, but also a well-articulated Executive Bill clearly condemning and outlawing the banditry associated with open grazing, for instance.”
He said such bills would easily scale through, giving that the president’s party has a comfortable majority in both chambers of the national Assembly.
He continued, “What is very clear is that the President needs to be more pan-Nigeria in his approach to solving the current problems… It is not too late to do a rethink… only President Buhari can’t be right and everyone else is wrong”.
He said it was the constitutional right of Nigerians to meet and talk on how to make their country better. ‘It is wrong to brand them otherwise’
…Details later
