* Says Bandits routes known to security
By Aideloje Ojo
Minna
The Niger State House of Assembly has resolved to shutdown legislative activities if the current security situation in the state did not improve and abducted pupils of the Catholic school rescued within 2 weeks.
The Assembly made the resolutions Tuesday following a motion of urgent public importance brought by the member representing Agwara constituency, Honourable Mohammed Nura Agwara raising the alarm that Niger state is under the siege of bandits and terrorists.
The legislators unanimously resolved the current security situation has eroded all the efforts of the present administration in transforming the state, adding that concrete actions must be taken immediately.
Presiding, the Speaker of the Niger State House of Assembly, Rt Honourable Abdulmalik Sarkindaji said the lawmakers have no choice other than to shutdown legislative business as the representatives of the people.
He said, “It is high time we put away our differences and face the current challenges. If schools can be shutdown, markets closed down then we can equally shutdown legislative business until the situation is addressed”.
The Speaker painted pathetic pictures of the security situation in his Mariga Constituency, saying that over 50 communities, including his political ward have been forced to relocate from their ancestral homes and abandoned their farms.
While calling for the deployment of troops to some strategic areas identified as bandits routes across the state, the speaker maintained that despite several appeals by the state governor, Mohammed Umaru Bago for the deployment of security agents across the danger routes, nothing has been done.
“These dangerous routes where these bandits operate are know to the security agents. They have only one routes where the operate freely and yet nothing is being done about it. I am very sure these abducted students will be move through the same routes. They will soon be moved to Zamfara through the same routes, they don’t have any other route and everybody knows about it yet nothing is being done about it”, he explained.
The House of Assembly therefore appealed to the Federal Government to mobilize all resources towards immediate rescue of the abducted students, adding that “if action is not taken within two weeks, the house will shutdown all legislative business”.
