Senate meets Service Chiefs, NIA DG, IGP Thursday over insecurity

The Senate has disclosed that it would meet with the Service Chiefs, the Director-General of the National Intelligence Agency and the Inspector General of Police on Thursday.

The President of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan announced this at plenary on Tuesday.

Lawan stated that the security chiefs who should brief the Senate are still occupied at the National Security Council meeting which may prolong till tomorrow (Wednesday).

He said the “briefing will be very crucial for us to be properly informed and properly guided. The only item on the order paper on Thursday will be the briefing.”

The Senate had on Tuesday last week, after a thorough discussion, determined to invite the heads of the country’s armed forces and other security agencies over the worsening security condition in the nation.

It had additionally determined that its leadership should meet with the President Muhammdu Buhari to look for methods of alleviating the security difficulties tormenting the nation.

Lawan said, “You will recall that on Wednesday we announced that the Chief of Defence Staff, the Service Chiefs, the Inspector General of Police and the DG NIA will be coming today at 11.00am to brief the Senate on the security situation.

“Today the National Security Council is continuing its meeting that it started last week. Therefore, the invited security heads will not be able to come for the briefing.

“We are not sure if they will finish their meeting today. We assume it could spill to Wednesday too, just like it spilled from Thursday to Tuesday.

“So to be on the side of caution, we have now fixed the date for the briefing to be Thursday, 6th May.

“I want to appeal to all of us that the briefing we will take from the Service Chiefs and other security agencies will be very crucial for us to be properly informed, properly guided, and that if there is any request for supplementary budget, we should be able to understand why we should consider and approve such request.

“On Thursday, the only item on the order paper will be the briefing. We will do that as a special day for the engagement, the interaction between the Senate and the service.”