The House of Representatives on Tuesday asked the Federal Government to expedite action on the creation of state police, local police and the decentralisation of courts as an integrated national intelligence and surveillance network as part of efforts at addressing the rising insecurity in the country.
The House said there should be no further delay in the creation of state police as Nigerians have waited long enough, saying “every further postponement is paid for in the blood of innocents, and brings the nation closer to being overrun”.
Adopting a motion of urgent public importance sponsored by Olamijuwonlo Alao-Akala, the House asked the “Federal Government and all security agencies to bring our remaining sons, daughters, and teachers home alive without further delay, for every hour lost is an hour in which we risk losing them forever, and that risk now outweighs every other consideration before us”.
The House also resolves that, in addition to the 1,000 forest guards already approved, a permanent military forward operating base should be established at Orire Local Government Area to plant a sustained and dominating security presence across the Old Oyo National Park and its environs, so that this strategic frontier around the border corridors ceases to be a safe haven for killers and a passage of terror into the South-West.
The House further asked the the National Assembly to work closely with the Executive Arm to implement the House resolution and commence full implementation of this House’s adopted resolution on a decentralised and regional security architecture.
Leading the debate on the motion, Alao-Akala appeal to Nigerians to grow above party lines in speaking against the current insecurity in the country, adding that anytime the terrorist or kidnappers embark on their mission, they don’t go in search of which party their victims belong to.
He condemned what he called the unrelenting siege upon the people of Ogbomoso and Orire Local
Government Areas of Oyo State, a siege that began with the brazen attack on the Old Oyo National Park in January 2025 and reached its most harrowing depths on the morning of 16th May 2025, when armed bandits descended upon Baptist Nursery and Primary School (Yawota), Community Grammar School (Esiele), and L.A. Primary School, dragging more than thirty of our children and their teachers into the forest in broad daylight, while terrified parents could only watch and weep.
He also condemned the barbaric execution of Mr. Michael Oyedokun, a mathematics teacher, who was beheaded in captivity by his abductors, a savage act that has shocked the conscience of our nation and demands an immediate and decisive response from every arm of government.
According to him, “as we sit in the comfort of this Chamber, mothers in Orire are sleepless, fathers are broken, and children still in the hands of their captors are crying out for a rescue that has not yet come, and that every passing hour of their captivity is an hour of unbearable agony for families who do not know whether their loved ones are alive or dead.
The Oyo Lawmaker acknowledged the rescue efforts of our security forces, and recognises the President’s dispatch of a delegation to Orire and his approval of 1,000 forest guards for the region; yet must say plainly, on behalf of a grieving people, that these measures must be expedited as we no longer want sympathy after the fact: we want to stop burying our children.
He stressed that the Old Oyo National Park and its surrounding forests are a vast, ungoverned wilderness straddling the border with Kwara State and opening onto international routes, a hidden highway through which these killers move freely, making the Orire axis the gateway through which terror is now creeping into the heart of the South-West.
Akala recall an earlier resolution of the House calling for the decentralisation of Nigeria’s security architecture and the establishment of a truly federal system of policing, anchored on State Police, Local Government policing units, decentralised courts, and integrated intelligence systems, as the most effective and constitutionally sound framework for combating the diverse, localised security threats confronting the nation.
He said “every day we delay implementing that adopted resolution, we leave our people defenceless before an enemy that grows bolder, and that the same centralised, Abuja-commanded policing model that failed Michael Oyedokun will fail the next teacher, the next pupil, and the next family, unless this House finds the courage to act now”.
Contributing to the debate, Bamidele Salam (Accord, Osun) lamented that terrorists have resorting to using innocent children as sheild, adding that it is unfortunate that the adoption of school children which started as a weapon by terrorist with the chibok girls is becoming a trend all the country.
Salam said one of the keys that locks a prision is education, saying “if we deliver education to our children it will deliver them from criminal activiteis and take them out of the market for the bad guys”, adding that “this important tool is what these terrorist and kidnappers have began to attack”.
He said further that “as leaders of the country, we need to act urgenty in addressing this problem. If a lion comes into a village and kill the children of the poor, there may be no mourning, but if it kill the child of a king, the whole village will turn to the a mourning ground.
“Some of our children attend schools outside the country because we can affords it. But the children of the poor attend public schools. We cannot close our eyes to public schools which the children of the poor attend. The government should create a special fund or strategy to protect the schools”.
He disclsoed that Civil Defence once had a school security arm, adding that the unit was never funded.
Also contributing, Benedict Etenabene (PDP, Delta) said Nigerians now live in fear across the country, adding that “we cannot keep procastinating and hoping situation will improve while leaving what should have been done yesterday.
“We should allow state invest in state police and the President should hasten that process. If state government provide equipment for their police to address this, this insecuerity will be addressed. The incidence in Oyo just one of them and we should not allow this to continue”.
Credit: thenationonlineng.net
