By Abiola Olawale
A chilling security alert has sent shockwaves across Nigeria after a House of Representatives committee revealed it had received threats of a plan to bomb the National Assembly complex.
Garba Muhammad, chairman of the committee on internal security of the national assembly, made this known during a public hearing on Tuesday.
The hearing was organised to consider a bill seeking to establish the legislative security directorate in the national assembly, which will outline the qualifications and conditions of service for the sergeant-at-arms and other personnel.
Muhammad stated: “Security is very crucial to all arms of government, especially to the legislative arm because it is an institution where legislators, staff, executive, judiciary, individuals, organisations, protesters, demonstrators, and many more troop in daily in their droves to pursue one thing or the other.
“Due to this daily massive influx of people into the parliament, criminals seek and attempt to take advantage of the situation to infiltrate and conduct their dubious behaviours.
“The national assembly is going through a lot of security challenges. We have experienced car thefts, motorcycle thefts, vandalism, fake Identity cards, and unwanted visitors accessing the national assembly without proper documentation, as well as petty trading, which gives the national assembly a small market appearance.
“We have received threats from terrorists to bomb the national assembly complex and threats from protesters to lock up the national assembly.
“Legislators are exposed to threats from constituents and others who gained easy access to their offices without any formal appointment
“It is obvious that with the ongoing security challenges, if proper measures are not taken, will truncate the legislative activities in the national assembly and if activities are thwarted, there will be no representation, no oversight, no annual budget, there will be no Plenary at all, and that will destabilise legislative procedure, democracy and the stability of the system, and our nation at large.
“Effective security management needs a total approach that requires various elements to be integrated together to secure our environment for legislative procedure to function effectively and maximally.”
The committee chairman said the bill seeks to address all the challenges facing the national assembly and adopt the world’s best practices of parliamentary security procedures and architecture.
Muhammad said the need for effective security measures in the national assembly cannot be overemphasised, adding that “stringent security measures” must be implemented.
Muhammad asked the state house of assemblies to implement the same security measures.
