PENGASSAN urges Buhari to declare state of emergency, overhaul security apparatus

Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria(PENGASSAN) has called on President Muhammadu Buhari to declare a state of emergency and overhaul the nation’s security apparatus with to check the rising insecurity across the country and commence a total and systematic mop up of arms and ammunition in the hands of criminals and other unauthorised individuals and groups nationwide.

In a statement by PENGASSAN’s National Public Relations Officer, Fortune Obi, yesterday in Lagos, the union decried the unending cases of killings and wanton destruction of property among others across the country.

It said: “The growing rate of insecurity in the land has become a nightmare. On daily basis, stories of killings in states such as Borno, Zamfara, Kaduna, Sokoto, Yobe and Adamawa states have saturated the mass media.

“The Boko Haram sect and violent herdsmen have been notorious for shedding of blood and destruction of property of innocent victims. We condemn in totality these atrocities and find it highly unacceptable.

“These acts have become news-worthy to the international community, thereby putting our country in the negative books internationally and potentially scaring prospective investors. Recently, it was reported that Boko Haram sect sacked an Army battalion in Borno State.

“In Lagos State, the story is not different and the list is endless. Reports of extra-judicial killings are now the order of the day. The sustenance of these criminalities further suggest the failure of leadership at all levels and a strong orchestration of the sponsors of this upsurge to spill more innocent blood of Nigerians.

“These unending cases of bombings and other forms of criminalities in our society would not have gained grounds if men of the Nigeria Immigration Service, NIS, and other agencies of the government charged with monitoring of alien movement across the land, had lived up to their responsibilities of protecting and projecting national security as against the current practice whereby national security is mortgaged on baseless acts of corruption and self-aggrandizement.

“PENGASSAN, therefore, demands the declaration of a state of emergency and a total overhaul of the nation’s security apparatus with immediate effect, as well as a systematic mop up of arms and ammunitions illegally acquired by politicians in the build-up to the 2019 general elections, especially now that the electoral process is over.

“We hinge this call on the fact that the security networks as presently constituted have lost its value and focus.”