School children now bear arms — Senator Akinyelure

Senator Ayo Akinyelure, represents Ondo Central Senatorial District on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). He is the Chairman, Senate Committee on Ethics, Privileges and Public Petitions. In this interview with CHUKWU DAVID, he speaks on the bill seeking to establish National Commission Against the Proliferation of Small Arms and Light Weapons, 2022, which was passed by the Senate recently. He says that the bill, if signed into law and implemented, can employ 3.7 million graduates and also end terrorism within six months, among others

 The bill for the establishment of National Commission Against the Proliferation of Small Arms and Light Weapons, 2022, which you co-sponsored, was passed in the Senate recently. What does the country stand to gain from the legislation, when signed into law by President Muhammad’s Buhari?

Thank you very much. The bill for the establishment of National Commission Against the Proliferation of Small Arms and Light Weapons, 2022, was passed into law by the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria on 26th July 2022.

 This bill is very important, and I must first commend the leadership of the National Assembly under Ahmad Lawan, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Rt Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila, for the role they played by both houses of the National Assembly, to ensure that at the end of the day, National Commission Against Proliferation of Small Arms and Light Weapons, Establishment Bill, 2022, was passed into law. This is a welcome development.

 This bill was passed by the National Assembly in line with Article 51 of the ECOWAS Protocol, that mandates all the heads of Government of the West African countries to go back to their countries to legislate and establish a national commission against proliferation of arms and ammunitions.

 Today, Wednesday the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria sees it as a matter of urgency for this national Commission to be established. Therefore, we want to use this medium to employ the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to give it accelerated assent because fundamentally, this national Commission will provide the needed support to all the security agencies in Nigeria to check the present insecurity that is ravaging the country.

 How is this Commission going to help in employment of many Nigerian graduates who are roaming the streets jobless?

 I wish to let you know that this particular national Commission, when established, will have the capacity of engaging a minimum of seven thousand graduates; full-fledged Nigerians who are ready to work, to support Mr. President in curbing insecurity in Nigeria.

 The Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria sees it as a matter of urgency to assist Mr. President of the nation to set a record never set and beat record unbeatable in youth employment engagement in Nigeria.

The National Assembly in the last three years, under Ahmad Lawan and the Rt Hon. Speaker, Femi Gbajabiamila, have cooperated very significantly with Mr. President to approve all the appropriations needed to assist the security agencies to curb the insecurity. But it appears the bottlenecks of the government, the bottleneck of engaging people into government work has stopped this noble objective of Mr. President from being achieved.

Therefore, the insecurity persisted. Those of us who are stakeholders in this economy, especially we in the Red Chambers, see it as a matter of urgency now that the whole nation is becoming unsecured, that this bill must be passed into law, so that many youths in Nigeria can be engaged under this national Commission against the proliferation of arms and ammunitions.

It appears that only Nigeria’s boarders are very porous and exposed to arms trafficking in the whole of ECOWAS. What’s your take on this?

Yes, from the research conducted by some of us who are in the Upper Chamber to support this country, only Nigeria and one other country have not implemented the ECOWAS protocol on establishment of national Commission against proliferation of arms.

Therefore, Nigeria has become a dumping ground for arms and light weapons and that is why many people are being attacked because the criminals have free means of bringing in these weapons into the country.

However, this Senate under Ahmad Lawan counts it worthy this time to call on Mr. President to give accelerated assent to this particular bill because it is a bill that will solve the problem of unemployment in this country. We have full-fledged graduates of all classes spread all over the nation jobless.

This agency will engage them. As we speak, from the research conducted, it was discovered that this Commission has the capacity to employ minimum of 7,000 to 10,000 graduates from each of the 36 States of the Federation and Abuja.

Without relying on appropriation of government, this agency when fully operational, has the capacity to generate enough revenue on its own, to pay an average of 10 thousand graduates from each State, with improved working packages.

The commission, under the Director-General, they have offices in the 36 States of the Federation and Abuja already. What they need is the backing of the Legislature, which has now been approved and implemented by the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria through the passage of the bill as I told you.

The bill says that the Chief Executive will be the Executive Chairman, and will be appointed by Mr. President. Therefore, we are asking Mr. President to give this bill accelerated passage so that the right person can be appointed as the Executive Chairman, to drive the agency, which is going to be private sector driven. The agency will have the well withal to sustain itself.

Now that the backing of the law has been given, the commission has the capacity to employ 7,000 to 10,000 graduates. Now, President Muhammadu Buhari has less than 11 months to complete his tenure, if the National Commission Against Proliferation of Light Arms and Ammunition, is given accelerated assent by the President, we believe that within the next six months, insecurity will be a thing of the past in the country because over 7,000 to 10,000 young graduates would be recruited from each of the 36 States of the federation and Abuja by the Commission to provide support for the military and other security agencies in the country.

The National Commission is about private sector engagement in government. The infrastructure is already in place and the people to be engaged are already in place. The National Assembly believes in this particular agency. They don’t rely on tax payers money. They are going to be generating enough revenue to sustain themselves and also return revenue to the Federation Account.

They will even have the capacity to generate revenue like the Nigeria Customs Service because we have studied them and we believe in them. We know that Nigerian is facing a lot of financial problem but we believe that this agency will be a value addition.

They are not coming to take money from this government, instead they are coming to add value to this government in terms of checking the insecurity in the nation and engaging our youths to participate in government and ensuring that the difficult situation in the country becomes a thing of the past.

I want to thank my colleagues in the Senate especially the President of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan and the entire leadership of the Senate  because they overwhelmingly supported this bill by giving accelerated passage to the bill. I also want to commend the Chairman of the Committee on National Security and Intelligence, Senator Ibrahim Gobir, who is now the Leader of the Senate.

He really worked hard with other members of the Committee to ensure that this bill was passed. I also, want to call on the Attorney General of the Federation, to quickly work on this bill and pass to Mr. President for assent. The Commission, apart from its own internally generated revenue, will seek financial support from international donor agencies.

Most of the terrorists operating in Nigeria are said to be foreigners. How is this Commission going to contribute towards fighting the invaders?

I have answered that question already. I have told you that this agency has the capacity to engage about 7,000 graduates from each of the 36 States of the Federation and Abuja, that will be trained to render security services to the nation.

One of the challenges we have is that the Army doesn’t have enough manpower to confront the terrorists. Also, Civil Defence doesn’t have enough men and the Nigeria Police Force doesn’t have enough men. And because there is no Commission checking the Proliferation of arms and ammunitions coming into the country, all the nooks and crannies of this nation have been flooded with ammunitions, small arms and light weapons. Primary six pupils carry gun now.

 But once this agency is put in place, it will address one fundamental problem which is graduate unemployment.

Significantly, any agency that can employ an average of 7,000 to 10,000 graduates in each State of the Federation, and they are trained to fight insecurity and pipeline vandalisation and other vices, you will see that this country will no longer be a dumping ground for light weapons and amunitions.

It is a problem before Nigeria, and we Nigerians have to solve the problem. We closed our doors and many graduates are roaming the streets. In fact, many Nigerians don’t have hope in this country any longer.

But if this bill is signed into law and implemented, the hope of Nigerians especially the youths will be restored. There is not going to be bottlenecks on how they will be paid. In my local community, many young boys turned to be 419 and engage in other criminal activities because they don’t have job. They colluded with people who engage in pipeline vandalisation.

The President of the nation owes it as a duty to ensure protection of lives and property of Nigerians. We know he is not a magician but we know that the National Assembly has provided, through appropriation, all the needed equipment and manpower for the security agencies to work to effectively tackle the issue of insecurity. We have made provisions for a lot of Nigerians to be recruited in the Army, Navy, Airforce, Police, and Civil Defence.

But the bottlenecks on how to engage these people will not come to play because you talk about Federal Character Principle of engagement. The infrastructure is already in place and the people to be employed are in place already. Those to be engaged will be trained for about one month. They have been undergoing training since they have been in existence. It’s only the legal backing that they require and that has been put in place. (Sunday Telegraph )