Deputy Senate President, Senator Ike Ekweremadu warned that if drastic action was not taken to tackle headlong the activities of Boko Haram, it would derail the 2015 elections.
Senator Ekweremadu stated that Section 180 of the constitution provides that “if the Federation is at war in which the territory of Nigeria is physically involved and the President considers that it is not practicable to hold elections, the National Assembly may by resolution extend the period of four years mentioned in Sub-section 2 of this Section from time to time, but no such extension shall exceed a period of six months at any one time.”
Furthermore, Ekweremadu said:
“If we don’t resolve the problem in the North-east, we may not have elections in 2015 because Section 180(3) of the Constitution says if the country is at war, there may not be elections. Of course, the country is at war now. Democracy is being rolled back in North-east. It is very important as the Senate to take a firm stance to resolve this problem.”
Also supporting Ekweremadu’s position, the Deputy Senate Leader, Senator Abdul Ningi wondered why the country would be facing serious security threat from the Boko Haram sect and some people were going on with political activities.
In apparent reference to the ongoing rally by the Transformation Ambassadors of Nigeria, TAN, Senator Ningi, who represents Bauchi Central on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP said, “Section 2 of the Constitution says Nigeria shall be one indivisible nation. Many houses and villages are no longer parts of this country. Fighting this war is more important than any other thing. There should be suspension of electioneering activities until these wars are over. People are so disturbed and have been disenfranchised and some areas are no longer part of this country…All electioneering activities should be suspended until this war is over.”
Senator Bello Tukur representing Adamawa Central said:
“It took Boko Haram less than 10 days to move into five local governments. The problem we have now I believe is the lack of understanding of security agencies on how Boko Haram is operating. I have interacted with some people and they said the number of Boko Haram people operating in that area is not more than 100 and yet they are able to chase the military away.”
Boko Haram installs new Emir in Bama
Senator Ali Ndume representing Borno North disclosed that the sect, on Monday, installed another Emir in Bama, a development he said was an affront on the sovereignty of the country.
Senator Ndume noted that when the Boko Haram sect started its operation, the number of members was not up to 100 and the members did not have AK47 that was available to the Nigeria’s security forces with many battalions but the country was not serious in fighting the insurgents.
He said: “Yesterday in Bama, a new emir was installed by the Boko Haram. Recently, we reluctantly under your leadership (Mark’s)and I will say maybe, under your influence or instruction, conceded to the third or fourth state of emergency. The reason then was that if we didn’t approve the state of emergency, the situation then would get out of hand. Would it get out of hand than what it is today? In those days, when we approved the first and second state of emergency, our soldiers were not running away, but the story before us today is that our soldiers are forced to abandon their duty posts not only to run back to their headquarters, but to move in to another country-Cameroon.
“We all know that Cameroon, as a country is not more than Lagos and Ogun states combined. So that means their strength cannot be more than Lagos and Ogun. And we have the army strength of more than 100,000 and I strongly believe that these Boko Haram members, even with the conscripted ones cannot be more than 10,000. But if you see the things that they did when they took over Gwoza, from the report I received, you would not imagine that the act was perpetrated by such insignificant number of insurgents.
“These Boko Haram boys, initially, many of them didn’t have even guns. I know you don’t send a soldier to any assignment without at least an AK-47. So if less than 100 people with less than 100 AK-47 would chase away 500 soldiers with AK-47, abandoning their APC, ammunition and everything, then you should know that something is wrong.”