Sen Ndume scolds Buhari, FG for being complacent on national security  

Senator Ali Ndume, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Army, representing Borno South in the National Assembly, has scolded President Muhammadu Buhari, accusing the Federal Government of complacency in handling the crisis insecurity in the country.

Ndume had reasoned with the Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, who lamented that the attack on the Kaduna-Abuja rail line could have been avoided if digital security equipment had been procured. Amaechi had further said on Wednesday that his colleagues in the federal cabinet refused to agree to approval of the proposal for the purchase of the required digital security equipment. The minister said that he warned that lives would be lost.

Ndume blasted the ministers who opposed the approval for the purchase of the required digital security equipment. The senator also blasted the federal government for not using the telecommunications technology to track the bandits who also use telephone services to coordinate their activities.

The senator also complained of non-protection of official actions of government, noting that even top secret security decisions are celebrated in the media  by government officials, exposing the security strategy of government to the bandits.

Ndume was cited to have highlighted: “If you look at it deeply, there is a lot of complacency in it. You have the MTN services. These people are using phones so you can track them. With today’s technology, people are taken away and you say you don’t know where they are.

“Coming back to what the minister said, I got angry too. How can you put all these people — every day, an average of 1,000 are moving around — and then the ministry will ask for money to buy gadgets and drones. These are mostly off-the-shelf items.

“You can order them or import them, install them immediately in two to three days.

“But you know what will happen in Nigeria next? They will go on TV and say we have purchased so and so and the bandits will watch it and they know where it is going to be installed.

“This system is terrible. People will frustrate this kind of process and you can see the minister was angry. That means there was a lot of frustration in the process of procurement. He said it.”

The senator also expressed concerns over high corruption in the system, expressing the need for the government to do something about the corruption culture in governance.

According to Ndume, “there is a bunch and a lot of kleptocracy in this system and the government needs to do something about it”.