Senate Joint Committee Screens Service Chiefs

NAN

The Senate Joint Committee on Defence, Army, Navy and Air Force on Monday urged the newly appointed service chiefs to effectively tackle insurgency and oil theft in the country.

The Chairman of the joint committee, Sen. George Sekibo, gave the charge at the commencement of the screening of the service chiefs in Abuja on Monday.

Sekibo noted that potent strategies must be undertaken by the newly appointed service chiefs to tackle kidnapping, pipeline vandalism and other security challenges in various parts of the nation.

He said the entire senate was determined to support any effort geared toward the protection of citizens by eliminating all forms of lawlessness and threat to national security.

According to him, the screening exercise is in accordance with the provision of the constitution which mandates the National Assembly to confirm the service chiefs before they are decorated by the president.

“Our country is going through some major challenges, including insurgency in the North-East, oil theft and pipeline vandalism in the South-South and kidnapping in the South-East and other parts of the country.

“If the required attention is not given to these challenges, they are capable of disintegrating our country or putting our nation’s unity in question.

“It is our belief that those of you who are presenting yourself for screening are prepared to work toward achieving tranquility in the North-East.

£You have to eliminate oil theft and pipeline vandalism in the South-South, stop kidnapping in the South-East and other areas of the country,’’ he said.

Sekibo added that the screening exercise was to assess the competence of the service chiefs in strategic military operations and their proficiency to combat the prevailing nation security challenges.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) observed that some senators of the All Progressives Congress (APC) attended the closed-door screening session.

The APC senators, included Akin Odunsi (APC-Ogun), Babafemi Ojudu (APC-Ekiti), Sani Saleh (APC-Kaduna), Atai Aidoko (APC-Kogi), Kabiru Marafa (APC-Zamfara), Robert Boroffice (APC-Ondo), among others.

It would be recalled that the APC leadership had directed all its lawmakers to block all legislative proposals from President Goodluck Jonathan until the Rivers crisis was resolved.