Hon. Benjamin Okezie Kalu, the Chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Media and Public Affairs, has revealed that one of the Legislative Agenda of the 9th House of Reps is to create community police.
Hon. Kalu, representing Bende Federal Constituency, Abia State, stated this while in an interview with ThePunch, he spoke on the importance of the creation of community policing system in Nigeria. According to him, community police will help curb insecurities across the country.
Speaking on the stand of the other members of house of representatives, Kalu said, “There will always be ‘for’ and ‘against’ on any issue; there is never going to be an issue that will come before the National Assembly or outside the Parliament that will not have the people who are proposing it and those who are opposing it. And that is the beauty of democracy; the ability to express one’s opinion. But the issue here is that democracy operates with the desire, will and interest of the people more than individual or personalised interests.
“The pendulum will always swing towards public interest for us to say that we are in a democracy. If the pendulum swings the other way, then that is an autocracy, where the will of the people is not put into perspective. The issue here is that there is insecurity in the land and efforts are being made to resolve it.
“There are so many aspects of resolving this particular issue. One is using the formal security solution, another is through sociological research to understand the root cause of some of these problems. Why do they pick arms? Why are they fighting? It was sociological analysis that led to the development of government policy on amnesty (for militants) and that solved the problem in the Niger Delta during the administration of (the late President Umaru) Yar’Adua.
“It was not the arms-against-arms strategy. It is the same thing many are advocating for insecurity in the North-East. Is it only military solution that is the best solution to what is happening in the North-East? Is it not high time we considered other options of understanding their agitation? I am sure that through the sociological process, it would be realised there is a need for jobs in that area of the country.
“There is a high unemployment rate in that area. I am a member of the (Committee on) Federal Character and I have gone through some of the nominal rolls of some of the Federal Government agencies. I am not from the North, I am from the South-East, but someone from the North is my brother just like someone from the South.
On the House of Representatives recently launched its Legislative Agenda, Hon. Kalu said the house under Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila, will put everything in place, he noted that the speaker who has been in the House for about 16 years; has sufficient institutional memory, to turn things around.
Kalu, also responded to the analyst who described the 9th House Of Reps Legislative Agenda as ambitious, which may be impossible to achieve.
He said;
“We have started practising that so-called ambitious agenda, with what we are doing with the current (2020) budget. We have tasked ourselves. We insisted that we were going to work with the executive to be able to reverse the (budget) calendar to January-December. It is part of our goal and we have put a framework in place.
“The committees were inaugurated in time and were assigned to commence work immediately and they are meeting with the MDAs (ministries, departments and agencies). Initially, there was this story that the MDAs would not be able to attend to us but it is obvious now that the MDAs are coming every day.
“You will agree with me that we didn’t just wish that the budget was reverted to January-December and went to sleep. Nothing in that document is wishful thinking. We have a framework for achieving them. Are we going to achieve all of them before the end of four years? We may not, but we are going to lay a foundation that will take us closer to the place.
“Remember, Rome was not built in a day and the journey of a thousand miles begins with a step. We have put a step in place and we are going to make a reasonable impact going forward.
