*Suggests screening of military personnel to fish put saboteurs in the armed forces
By Ismail Auwal
The House of Representatives has urged the Federal Government to consider the training of 40,000 special Police Mobile Unit officers with 1,000 each to be deployed in every state for immediate operations.
The House also wants the government to commence the development of reserves and ranching in states disposed to it.
These are some of the resolutions taken by the House during plenary on Tuesday, which it said would go a long way in checking rising insecurity in the country.
The resolutions were part of the 19 recommendations made by a special house committee on national security.
The committee chaired by Speaker Femi Gbajabiamila held a three-day summit in May to discuss some of the security challenges facing the country.
The Committee of the whole considered the report of the committee, which was presented by the speaker, on clause-by-clause basis.
Part of the report recommended that the Federal Government should:
(i) Instruct the immediate enhanced training for the Police Mobile Unit to improve their capacity to deal with insecurity.
“A special team of 40,000 Police Mobile Unit officers should undergo this special training. 1,000 should then be deployed to every state for immediate operations.”
North East, South West, South East can receive the officers remaining out of the 40,000;
(ii) Create a new team under the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) to train and work with the guards of Nigeria’s forest. This unit will collaborate with the current Forest Guards who will remain under the control of States;
(iii) Encourage the Intelligence Agencies (working with the National Security Adviser and the Chief of Defence Staff) to initiate a screening and vetting programme of all frontline officers of the Nigerian (armed forces) to fish out moles and double-agents who have so far compromised most efforts at combating insecurity and win the war against insurgents and terrorists;
(iv) Strategically, the Executive should initiate a Presidential Police Reform initiative that will be resident in one central place within the Presidency.
Also, an operational specialised unit should be established within the NPF to champion and drive all the change initiatives (based on a Presidential Policing Reform Roadmap) from within the institution;
The legislature also asked the federal government to commence the screening of the military (personnel) with a view to identifying double agents and moles.
It also called for the creation of zonal development commissions across all the zones.
All 19 resolutions were adopted by the House, and Gbajabiamila said that the report would be presented to President Muhammadu Buhari, also on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, lawmakers from the South-South geopolitical zone have protested the classification of Niger Delta as a zone in the report.
Luke Onofiok (PDP, Akwa-Ibom) moved a motion for the removal of Niger Delta Development Commission and instead include the creation of the South-South Development Commission
