TheCable

Isah Misau, senator representing Bauchi central, has accused the army of playing politics with security.

He said this on Tuesday while contributing to the debate on the recent killings in Zurmi, Zamfara state.

The motion was sponsored by Tijjani Kaura, senator representing Zamfara north.

Misau wondered why Boko Haram insurgents carry out attacks after the army claimed to have defeated them.

“Mr President we cannot mix politics with security. What the army is doing is politics. You will come out to say you have defeated Boko Haram and the next day Boko Haram will go and kill people to prove a point,” he said.

“Even the army coming to say they have Boko Haram is a risk to lives of the people. They should stop coming out to tell that they have defeated Boko Haram. It is not necessary. If Boko Haram is defeated, we will know.”

He also lamented the situation of inadequate security personnel and poor equipping of the military.

“The place the incident happened (Zamfara), if you take the statistics, you won’t find up to 100 security men there,” he said.

“Even if there were 100 security men, you will find out that they are not armed. We have to be practical, do we have the manpower? The resources? If we don’t have it, we will continue to talk here, we will keep observing one-minute silence.

“The army is becoming demoralised, they (soldiers) have an ambition to reach a certain rank but they are blocked. If we allow the morale of our soldiers to go down, we will face a lot of problems. We must do the right thing.”

On his part, Kabir Marafa, senator representing Zamfara central, said Abdulaziz Yari, governor of Zamfara, “is part of the problem”.

“The state governor is part of this problem. By the admission of the governor. The governor said during his visit to the emir of Zurmi on condolence that he had intelligence report 24 hours before the incident happened, that he knew the attack was going to happen. 24 hours, elapsed, the attack happened, harmless people were killed,” he said.

“Mr President the governor said he reported to security agencies, I want this senate to investigate, who gave him this security report and who did he report it to.”

While moving the motion earlier, Kaura noted that the latest attacks caused fears across the state.

The senate urged the federal government to mount diplomatic pressure on Niger Republic and Chad to “forestall criminals” from using their territories to launch attack on Nigeria.