12th July, 2012
The Chairman, Lagos State House of Assembly Committee on Physical Planning and Urban Development, Mufutau Egberongbe, has described the recent killings in Jos, which involved a serving Senator, the Majority Leader of the Plateau State House of Assembly and several others, as pure genocide.
He also summarised that Nigeria was currently in a war-like situation considering the rate at which scores of the nation’s citizens die almost on daily basis as a result of government’s failure to protect lives and property as stipulated in the constitution of the country.
Egberongbe, who represents Apapa Constituency 1 at the House, lamented the essence of government with the level of insecurity currently being witnessed in the country, stressing that, “if for any reason you cannot secure the lives and property of your citizens, you have failed and you don’t really have any business in governance.
“In a situation where there is no government in place, then life will be shortened and brutish.
“But as it were now, life is not just short and brutish. In our own case, life is just being taken on a daily basis and this simply means there is no government in place.
“We really have to sit down and have a rethink about intelligence, the idea of attributing every killing to Boko Haram, I think we should begin to have a rethink.”
Egberongbe noted that the crisis in Jos, the Plateau State capital had existed before the emergence of the Boko Haram sect.
“It is weak security intelligence on the part of our government to begin to ascribe and arrogate such killings to Boko Haram and by the time you start doing that, you might end up running after Boko Haram, whereas, the original criminals are elsewhere,” Egberongbe said reminding those in power that the country was in desperate need of a Sovereign National Conference.
The lawmaker defended the State Governors saying though they collect security votes, they have no power over the security apparatus of the country which is solely under the Federal Government.
He warned the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) led government at the centre that if nothing is done to tackle the menace, the country may go into extinction sooner than expected since it would take a reprisal of angry Nigerians to make the country become history.
He also expressed pessimism that the current National Security Adviser, Sambo Desuki, could tackle the issue of insecurity with the way he has started.