The Nigerian Senate has opined that the Nigerian government has become complacent in the issue of insecurity.
The Senate Committee Chairman on Army, Senator Ali Ndume faulted federal government’s handling of insecurity, while reacting to the Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, who claimed that the attack on the Kaduna-Abuja rail line could have been avoided if digital security equipment had been procured.
The Senator appeared during an interview on ChannelsTV’s current affairs programme, Politics Today on Wednesday.
The minister had said that his colleagues declined approval for the purchase.
Ndume however faulted the failure to approve the purchase, questioning why the bandits have not been tracked down.
“If you look at it deeply, there is a lot of complacency in it. You have the MTN services. These people are using phones so you can track them. With today’s technology, people are taken away and you say you don’t know where they are. No, I mean let’s be serious,” the lawmaker noted.
“Coming back to what the minister (Amaechi) said, I got angry too. I mean how can you put all these people — every day, an average of 1,000 are moving around — and then the ministry will ask for money to buy gadgets and drones. These are mostly off-the-shelf items.
“You can order them or import them, install them immediately in two to three days. But you know what will happen in Nigeria next? They will go on TV and say we have purchased so and so and the bandits will watch it and they know where it is going to be installed.
“This system is terrible. People will frustrate this kind of process and you can see the minister was angry. That means there was a lot of frustration in the process of procurement. He said it.
“There is a bunch and a lot of kleptocracy in this system and the government needs to do something about it,” Ndume said.
