Plateau Killings: “What I Told The President” – Dogara
PRESS STATEMENT*
Today, I and President of the Senate, Dr Abubakar Bukola Saraki, met with
President Muhammadu Buhari over the #Plateau violence.
We requested for the meeting in order to hear from the president the steps
and measures he is taken to end the orgy of killings and violence not only
on the Plateau but in other parts of the country.
The President briefed us on what he saw firsthand when he visited Plateau
state on Tuesday and the measures he is putting in place to forestall
recurrence.
The President has taken enough steps and told us what he is doing
especially the reorganisation that he plans to put in place to ensure that
this doesn’t happen again.
We also used the opportunity to advise the President on other measures and
actions that will help bring lasting peace in our country in accordance
with the resolutions passed at the joint emergency closed-door session of
the National Assembly held some weeks ago.
These are very sober moments for all us. In a situation where people, in
hundreds continued to be killed, we can no longer tolerate this kind of
situation as a government.
We call on all relevant government agencies to quickly provide emergency
relief services to people in the affected areas.
The House of Representatives and indeed the National Assembly will continue
to work towards providing all necessary legislative backing to the security
agencies more especially funding needed to reform and equip our armed
forces to tackle the prevailing security challenges confronting us as a
nation.
I am also restating my earlier call for a total reform and overhaul of our
internal security architecture which has failed to address the spate of
insecurity in the land.
I want to seize this opportunity to once again offer our condolences to
families of victims of violence in Zamfara, Benue, Plateau, Taraba,
Adamawa, Kaduna Nasarawa, Borno, Yobe and other places and urge our
citizens to embrace peace without which there can be no meaningful
development.
Signed
Rt Hon Yakubu Dogara
Speaker,
House of Representatives,
Federal Republic of Nigeria