Nyako, Gaidam reject emergency rule extension…Borno elders, N/Assembly members also

Jonathan tabled his request before the National Assembly, saying the proclamation that had been in place for the past one year had helped restore normalcy in the affected states but that “the security situation that necessitated the proclamation…was yet to abate.”The president therefore asked the Senate and the House of Representatives to approve the extension […]

Jonathan tabled his request before the National Assembly, saying the proclamation that had been in place for the past one year had helped restore normalcy in the affected states but that “the security situation that necessitated the proclamation…was yet to abate.”
The president therefore asked the Senate and the House of Representatives to approve the extension of state of emergency in Adamawa, Borno and Yobe states by another six months.
State of emergency was first proclaimed in the three states in May last year and extended by six months in November, to expire tomorrow.
In his reaction, Nyako urged the National Assembly to send a fact-finding team to Adamawa to evaluate security situation to enable them arrive at an informed decision in respect of the state of emergency.
He spoke to Daily Trust in Yola through his spokesman Ahmad Sajo, saying Adamawa is more secure than Abuja.
“It is under state of emergency that over 200 girls were kidnapped and transported for over 100 kilometers and nobody stopped them. Imagine the kind of harassment you will be subjected to by security men if you are carrying 200 chickens in any of the three states. So we are disappointed that some people sitting in Abuja decide to extend the emergency rule,” he said.
Also contacted by Daily Trust, an entrepreneur in Yola, Abdulaziz Maigari, said declaration of an emergency rule is not the solution; rather the Federal Government should commit more troops and proper equipment around the insurgents’ strongholds.
However, the Chairman of Adamawa State chapter of the National Association of Nurses and Midwives, Adamu B. Watu, said he had no objection to the proposed extension.
“If the president feels it is the best thing to do to protect the people against insurgents, let it be,” he said.
In Damaturu, Governor Gaidam rejected the emergency rule extension, saying the proclamation that has been in place since May last year did not succeed.
In a statement, the governor’s spokesman Abdullahi Bego said, “We believe that extending emergency rule is not the answer to the prevailing security challenges in the three affected states in view of the apparent failure of the same measure over the last 12 months.”
Bego said Gaidam had supported the first emergency declaration in May 2013 because of the belief that there was need for a more heightened effort to deal with the escalating security challenges at the time.
“Six months on, emergency rule was a mixed-bag that was marked more by failure than by success,” he said, adding that this was why Gaidam expressed reservation to the first extension in November.
He said Gaidam previously suggested that security forces needed to be properly equipped with superior weaponry and advanced communications equipment, and that the people of the affected states be carried along in the fight against insurgency. Bego said neither of these had been done.
“We also note that the problem of insecurity is now more of a national problem than an issue restricted to Yobe, Borno and Adamawa states alone. There are security challenges in Plateau, Nasarawa, Benue, Taraba and Kaduna states and even the Federal Capital Territory. Yet, in all these places, the military and other security forces have continued to do their work of trying to restore order without an ‘Emergency Rule’ being declared by the President,” he said.
In his reaction, spokesman for Borno State Governor Kashim Shettima, Isa Umar Gusau, said, Shettima was for now “more concerned about the (abducted) Chibok girls. Kashim Shettima is focusing attention on the girls and at the same time studying the request by the Federal Government for extension of emergency.”
But spokesman for the Borno Elders Forum, Dr. Bulama Mali Gubio, decried the extension request.
“Yes, soldiers have done their best in the last one year but the successes they recorded was because of the enormous support they got from the democratic structure on ground, the unflinching cooperation of our youth who are known as the civilian JTF, the bravery of our people in villages who give credible information,” he said.
“As far as we are concerned, the military can do whatever they want to do without any state of emergency.”
Earlier yesterday, some senators and House members from the affected states opposed the emergency rule extension.
Senator Ahmad Ibrahim Lawan (APC, Yobe North) said, “The state of emergency had been operated for 12 months now and will end on the 19th of this month. I think that should be the end. That is not to say that the military operation in the Northeast should cease. Instead, the federal government should deploy more military personnel and modern equipment to the affected states.”
Senator Mohammed Ali Ndume (APC, Borno South) said, “We are not in support of extending it because it has not served the purpose for which it was declared one year ago…. More people are killed and displaced and the insurgents grew stronger.
So we begin to wonder if they are asking for the extension so that things will get worse.”
Senator Ahmed Zanna (PDP, Borno Central) said, “I vehemently oppose the extension. There is no need for it because even without an emergency they can deploy troops and operate and we have given them one good year and two chances and they refused to do anything. There’s nothing emergency in the troubled areas in the last one year. Except is there’s a political undertone it should not extended.”
Rep Aliyu Sani Madaki (APC, Kano) told Daily Trust that he saw no reason why the emergency rule should be extended “when there was no improvement for the past one year and the people continue to suffer.”
For his part, Rep Aminu Suleiman (APC, Kano) said: “One year after, has the situation changed? What have they done with the huge sums budgeted for?”
But some lawmakers from the affected states said had it not been for the state of emergency, the insecurity in those states “would have heightened and gone out of hand.”
Rep Kaka Kyari Gujbawu (PDP, Borno) told Daily Trust that he was fully in support of the extension.
“The facts and parameters that necessitated the president to declare the state of emergency are still there. But that fact that you take a drug for an ailment and it doesn’t go immediately doesn’t mean that the drug will not work,” he said.
“If not for the state of emergency, only God knows the state we would have been in now. It would have heightened and gone out of hand, so I support the extension and sustenance of emergency.”
Rep Abdulrahman Terab (APC, Borno) said: “Anybody who promises us a better alternative to state of emergency, we will welcome it. But for now, emergency is the only alternative. If you go to Bama and Maiduguri and tell them emergency should be removed, they’ll kill you.”