Senator wants lawmakers to sell 3 out of their many vehicles to address insecurity, unemployment

Disturbed by worsening security situation in the country, a Nigerian senator has suggested that he and his colleagues should sell three out of their many vehicles and use the proceeds to engage youths in order to reduce crime.

The senator representing Rivers East, Andrew Uchendu, made the suggestion at the plenary of the lawmakers on Thursday.

According to him, the general insecurity situation currently in the country is due to youth unemployment, and in order to address it to prevent long-term consequences, senators should dispose three of the five vehicles they each own and use the proceeds to engage the youth.

He had added, “We need to find appropriate economic policies to engage idle hands.”

The senator’s suggestion followed the debate on the floor of the Senate which emanated from the presentation of the Kaduna Central senator, Shehu Sani, on the killing of a Briton and the abduction of three others in a holiday resort in Kaduna State by armed bandits.

Sani had described the killing as “senseless” in his motion.

Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu, who seconded the motion, expressed condolences to the families of the victims and also to “all Nigerians living in fear.”

He had said, “We need to declare a national state of emergency to enable the government put in place measures to end this problem.”

After some other lawmakers contributed to the debate, the President of the Senate, Bukola Saraki said, “If you all remember yesterday, we observed a minute silence and condoled the family and sent messages to the embassy, but the deputy Senate President rightly stood up and said, it goes beyond just this individual worker, both Nigerian and foreigner.

“There are a lot of issues that we need to address because the way these series of killings are going on and that is why we brought it up today.

“In line with the last speaker, we must begin to look at the solutions. When we talk about the way forward, we need to be honest with ourselves. We need to talk as senators in this upper chamber because in addressing these issues, we need to be frontal on what has led us to where we are today and we must proceed through our political parties’ platforms and see it as a problem that all of us need to address.”

Continuing speaking, Saraki opined that wherever there is a fault, the nation must be bold enough to say it; and “where there are sanctions that need to be taken, we must be bold as well to say so.”

READ ALSO: IGP Adamu orders immediate return to 3-shift duty system in police

On how the Senate was allegedly snubbed by the former police Inspector General of Police (IGP), Ibrahim Idris, Saraki said, “I mean, you have all been in this chamber; for one year, we could not even communicate, converse or engage with the Nigeria Police.

“You were all here when the Head of Police refused to even come before us. How can we work together to move things forward because, at the end of the day, we must begin to sit down with those in charge and discuss what we need to do, how do we help you.

“Even if we want to recruit, we can’t do it from here, we need guidance, they need to tell us what we need to know.”

At the end the lawmakers resolved to invite the acting IGP, Mohammed Adamu, to come and address it on the issue of insecurity in the country.

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