Senate Reveals Plan To Resolve Nigerians’ Pain

The Chairman of the Senate Committee on Judiciary, Human Rights, and Legal Matters, Mohammed Monguno, expressed the National Assembly’s deep concern over the ongoing security challenges in Nigeria, despite significant budget allocations intended to bolster the country’s defense and security capabilities.

During a stakeholders’ dialogue on the State of Human Rights in Nigeria, organized by the Policy and Legal Advocacy Centre in Abuja on Monday, Monguno highlighted the government’s commitment to safeguarding lives and properties.

He emphasized that the National Assembly had allocated a substantial portion of the 2024 budget, amounting to N3.25 trillion out of N28.7 trillion, to the security sector, aiming to empower various agencies to effectively tackle the menace of insecurity.

Despite these efforts, insecurity issues such as kidnapping continue to plague the nation, with the Civil Society Organisation, Enough is Enough, reporting approximately 245 kidnapping cases and over N6 billion in ransoms demanded by kidnappers in January 2024 alone.

This situation underscores the complex challenges facing Nigeria’s security apparatus and the urgent need for effective strategies to combat criminal activities across the country.

Monguno stressed the government’s primary responsibility to ensure the safety and security of its citizens, indicating that the allocation of a significant budget to the security sector reflects the National Assembly’s prioritization of this critical issue.

He said, “I want to assure you that the 10th National Assembly is a very responsible and responsive assembly to the yearnings and aspirations of the people. We feel the pains of Nigerians that we are representing as a result of the problem of insecurity in the country.

“And the Senate, in order to address this problem in the 2024 Appropriations Act, has made robust provisions to the security sector because the security sector got the highest amount of allocation because the National Assembly is desirous of giving all the wherewithal and the necessary input for them to be able to discharge their constitutional mandate of protecting the lives and properties of Nigeria to grantee peace order and good governance.

“Security is the primary responsibility of government. And that is the social contract that the government has with the people. That is the primacy of governance, and because of that, the National Assembly appropriated the highest amount of money to the security sector.”

Monguno, however, vowed that the national assembly would intensify its oversight functions to ensure the judicious utilization of the funds.

He said, “And we are also going to double on our oversight functions, to oversight the security agencies that are charged with the responsibility of guaranteeing our security to make sure that these funds are judiciously utilized for the benefit of Nigerians.”

The Executive Director, PLAC, Clement Nwankwo lamented that despite the ENDSARs protest which occurred in 2020, human rights challenges remained in the country.

He said, “The challenge of human rights in Nigeria remains. Some of them are institutional, some of them are behavioral, and others are human-made. Those challenges continue to pose obstacles to the exercise and human rights in the country.

“We see the abuses that come with citizens interaction with the police, we saw the circumstances that led to protests in 2020, and we saw the commitments of government agencies to address the problem raised for it. Unfortunately, they continue to operate in ways that do not help citizens to exercise the full value of rights recognised in the Constitution.”

Executive Secretary, of the National Human Rights Commission, Anthony Ojukwu (SAN) said to boost the nation’s Foreign Direct Investment, the government and its agencies must obey court orders.

He noted that disobeying courts sends a wrong signal to foreign investors.

Ojukwu said, “Disobeying court orders has implications on our FDI. They will believe if their rights are infringed and they go to court the orders might not be obeyed. And as such they will not get the remedy they seek.”

He also backed the call for the establishment of state police, allaying fears that it would be hijacked by governors.

Ojukwu added, “We should have state police. If we establish one are we not going to prescribe how they will operate?
We need security. Look at the large number of ungoverned spaces we have, state police will go a long way to help in securing those areas.”