Ndume, Gobir and quest to tackle insecurity


Undoubtedly, the nation has been witnessing hydra-headed security challenges that have emerged in recent years ranging from insurgency to banditry, armed robbery, kidnapping, cultism, militancy andassorted criminal activities with shockwaves reverberating across thelength and breadth of the nation.However feelers emerging from security circles indicate that finally the law enforcement agencies are getting a grip on the various security challenges and are giving the criminals a run for their money, thereby resulting in their last minutes gasps of desperate operations involving kidnapping of innocent school children, mostly thegirl-child. For what would draw supposedly invincible and dreaded insurgents to stoop so low as to the abduction of female children rather than engaging the nation’s armed forces if not for the fact that they have been severely weakened and almost on the brink of defeat due to the gallant operations of our men in uniform.

The upper hand recently gained by the Nigerian armed forces against assorted insurgents and bandits can partly be credited to theoutstanding oversight activities executed by the dynamic duo of Senator Abdullahi Ibrahim Gobir, Chairman Senate Committee on National Security and Senator Mohammed Ali Ndume, Chairman Senate Committee on the Army.Both federal lawmakers are heavy weight politicians in their own rights, extremely popular with the grassroots and have taken decisive steps to deliver crucial dividends of democracy to their senatorial zones and respective states as a whole. Visiting Senator Ali Ndume’s Apo Legislative Quarters residence, one may be forgiven for mistaking it for a palliative-sharing centre as hundreds of internally displaced persons (IDPs) mostly vulnerable women and children congregate on adaily basis to receive food, provisions and various sums of money from the compassionate Senator Ali Ndume. As a signal of his widespread popularity and acceptance by a broad segment of Borno state populace, Senator Ndume contested and won the Borno South Senatorial polls on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in 2011, trouncing then Governor Modu Sheriff’s preferred candidate, Hon Asabe Vilita Bashir. Anebullient Senator Ndume later moved to the All Progressives Congress (APC) where he repeated the electoral feat in 2015 taking the PDP’s candidate once again to the cleaners with his former opponent, Hon Asabe Vilita clinching the House of Representatives seat on the platform of a resurgent APC.Senator Abdullahi Gobir on the other hand remains one of the most highly respected and admired political titan in the upper chamber renowned for his forthright, principled and erudite approach to issue of over aching national interest and crucially held forth as a force for stability and order in the various 7th, 8th and now 9th sessions of the Senate. He is someone whose sincere, mature, pragmatic and concise advice/counsel him in good stead with the leadership and membership of the National Assembly.

various elections to the Senate, Senator Abdullahi Gobir has earned top billing burying his motley of opponents in a resounding landslide further cementing his positively intimidating reputation as a political plenipotentiary par excellence in our current democratic dispensation.With their unvarnished reputation and impeccable credentials as political avatars and legislative wonderkinds of no mean repute, Senators Gobir and  Ndume have bought soundadvice, refreshing perspectives and creative ideas and opinions tobear in the war against terrorism, banditry, separatism and all other divisive tendencies that threaten the cohesiveness of the Nigeriastate. With their innovative and coherent approach to tackling the nation’s security challenges which has permeated all sectors of thenation’s security architecture, there has emerged a renewed commitment to taking the battle to the armed criminals in the North-east, North-west and other trouble spots thus putting them on notice that the time has come for them (insurgents/bandits) to surrender unconditionally or face total annihilation at the hands of gallant Nigerian troops. In fact, the present posture of the nation’s armed forces against the murderous terrorists can be likened to American General Colin Powell’s famous dictum on the eve of the first Gulf War against Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi troops when he said, “We cut them off, then we kill.”The Nigerian Army, Navy, Airforce, DSS, Police and other security formations are at the crest of a resounding victory against the terrorist elements laying siege on a beleaguered populace and this time, the battle would be thorough and decisive sending the criminalinsurgents to the raging hell which they rightly belong. Majorly thanks to the vigorous, formidable, resolute and patriotic efforts of these two lawmakers who are men of timber and calibre. 
Asadu is of the Legislative Writers Forum and writes from Abuja

Leave a Reply