Inadequate funding and poor co-ordination among security agencies in the country have been identified as reasons responsible for the inability to stem the tide of insecurity in the country.
This was made known on Wednesday by the Senate following a meeting with security chiefs in the country.
The Senate following a summon on May 8, 2018, held a closed-door meeting with security chiefs on the problems of arms proliferation, spate of killings and kidnappings among other crimes across the country.
Chief of Defence Staff, General Abayomi Olonisakin, led other security chiefs to the meeting.
At the meeting, the security agencies briefed the Senate on the activities to curb the spate of violence across the country.
In a statement by the Senate President, Bukola Saraki, shortly after the meeting, the Senate agreed to improve on the funding of the security outfits in the country, having identified inadequate funding as being responsible for inability to contain the spate of insecurity.
It therefore urged them to submit for necessary action, the budget for special funding.
The Senate also said it believed that adequate co-ordination of the different security outfits would improve the security situation in the country.
The statement reads in part: “On the whole, we decided that on our part, certain outstanding bills or protocols that needed to be fast-tracked, be addressed immediately to see that they are passed as soon as possible in order to strengthen the nation’s security architecture.
“Secondly, the Senate observed the issue of underfunding of security agencies and agreed that there is need for special funding for them to be able to carry out their mandates. Therefore, we gave the security chiefs two weeks to present their own budget on this area of special funding to the National Assembly which we think will go a long way in improving the security situation in the country.
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“Our great concern also was the issue of coordination among the security agencies and on this note, we resolved to find ways to strengthen that aspect of security through constitutional means.
“By and large, we all are committed to ensure that these unfortunate trend of killings are brought to end. We all agreed to continue to work very closely in order to address this issue of insecurity and we are confident that things will improve in this area.
“The Senate has its role to play and the security agencies are also committed to play their own role. We hope that over the next couple of weeks, we will begin to take action on some of these things for which we have made commitments.”
