The House of Representatives has called on President Goodluck Jonathan to initiate dialogue with Boko Haram and other militant groups causing security unrest in the country.
This is just as the legislators commiserated with the Emir of Kano and the families of all who lost their lives at the recent assassination attempt and other incidents so far.
The Reps made the decision at the plenary session yesterday while adopting the resolutions of a motion titled “Urgent need for the federal government to open avenues for dialogue as a means of addressing security challenges in the country,” raised as a matter of urgent national importance by Hon Muhammed Bashir Galadanchi yesterday.
Galadanchi expressed concern that “military action, random arrests and imprisonments….obviously have had limited effectiveness and escalated trends of insecurity indicating that they are only short-term solutions”.
He went further to add that, “if this approach is not reversed and more long-term solutions deployed, the incessant incidents will pose serious threats to our security, to our democracy, to the rights and freedom of our innocent citizens and ultimately destabilize the nation’s fragile stability and unity”.
For that reason, he asked the presidency to “embrace dialogue to resolve the present insecurity bedeviling the nation”, while “initiating programmes that will promote rule of law, strengthen civil institutions and address the underlying factors that fuel insecurity and violent extremism”.