Sen. Helen Esuene
Diana Okon-Effiong, Calabar
The Federal Government has been advised to equip and increase funding of security forces to combat internal security challenges, terrorism and insurgency.
Sen. Helen Esuene, Chairman, Senate Committee on Women Affairs and Youths Development, made the call in an interview with newsmen on Friday in Calabar.
Esuene expressed concern on the increasing security challenges in the country and the handling of the more than 200 kidnapped Government Secondary School girls at Chibok, Borno State.
She called for “a total beef up of the country’s security system with a view to acquiring state of the art combat equipment.
“If need be there should be a law or deliberate policy to ensure that we secure modern equipment to combat this kind of insurgency in our borders.
“With modern satellite coverage, it can pick or track movement and that will definitely help.
“What is happening is not insufficient laws but we just need to put in place definite structures to checkmate the bad eggs.
“A whole generation of girls from one community that have been carted away is very sad and unfortunate.
“The general populace including myself is not happy with the response from the authorities, from the governor of the state to the security operatives, the issue was kept quiet for too long.
“Nobody told us anything and we did not know the modus operandi. Even up till now the exact number of the children is fluctuating between one number and the other.
“I know obviously the security operatives have their own challenges because operating in an area like that cannot be very easy and Boko Haram you cannot identify them.
“While the security operatives are trying to bring them back, I think every Nigerian should be more security conscious,” she said.
She also decried what she called Nigeria’s porous borders, which according to her, made it easy for people in the neighbouring countries to come in.
The senator stressed the need for government to think on how to protect our borders and make it more secured.
On the coming of the Americans and others for assistance she said: “Well I take it with pinch of salt because when you know what has happened in other countries before now.
“I would have been much more comfortable with us dealing with our own issues but it is obvious that we cannot because it is about two years since the bombing started.
“We cannot refuse help but at the same time we have to really define the sort of help that they are giving to us.
She stressed the need to get modern equipment, saying that intelligence is both the civilian and military intelligence.
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