The National Assembly may be shut to assist the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari end the spate of killings by herdsmen, says Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu. Ekweremadu presided over the plenary on Tuesday. He ruled on a motion moved by Senator Suleiman Adokwe from Nasarawa-South over the incessant killings in his senatorial district.
“Throughout the weekend to this moment, herdsmen have unleashed mayhem on the people of my senatorial district, leaving many dead bodies, numerous injured persons and hundreds of thousands of internally displaced persons,” Adokwe pointed out. “The victims are largely the Tiv speaking ethnic nationalities, with a reported dead toll of 32 persons, and we are still counting.”
Other senators, while commenting on the killings, said President Buhari had not done enough to end the killings. Ekweremadu, after the debate, said, “If we have nobody to represent, nobody will have a job here. So, security is more important than any other thing that we do here. “If it gets to a level where we have to shut down this National Assembly and sit down with the executive for as long as it lasts to resolve the problem, we will have to do that.”
He said, “I ask myself: assuming this is happening in America, in the United Kingdom or France, will it take all this time to be resolved? Not even in South Africa. But it appears that we are taking too many things for granted. The time has come for us to seek help from other countries. We should not be ashamed to ask for help.”
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