•Task IGP, CoAS on herdsmen attacks
From Ndubuisi Orji and Kemi Yesufu, Abuja
House of Representatives yesterday resolved to investigate the N41.714 billion so far spent on the Social Investment Programme (SIP) of the Federal Government.
Consequently, the House mandated its Committees on Labour and Productivity and Poverty Alleviation to undertake the assignment.
The committees are also to ensure that the programme is implemented across the 36 states in the country.
This was sequel to the adoption of a motion moved at yesterday’s plenary by Bode Ayorinde on the need to appraise the modalities for the implementation of the SIP.
Leading debate on the motion, Ayorinde recalled that during the last general election, the All Progressives Congress ( APC) promised that if elected, its government would run the SIP, which consists of a school feeding programme that will cover about 5.5 million primary school pupils and job creation for 500,000 graduates, who will be paid N30,000 each.
He said the programme also included N5,000 monthly Conditional Cash Transfer for one million recipients and provision of loan facility, ranging from N10,000 to N10,0000, for 1.66 million people, under its Enterprise Promotion Programme.
Ayonrinde said although the government claimed that as at April this year, N41.714 billion had been spent on the programme, its impact has not been felt substantially across the country, two years after its commencement.
The lawmaker contended that, so far, only seven states have been covered in the School Feeding Programme, adding that his constituency in Ondo State has not benefitted from any aspect of the programme.
Legislators who contributed to the debate were unanimous in their views that the programme is not running in their respective states.
Therefore, they called for an investigation into the funds so far spent on the programme, and the criteria for selecting the beneficiaries.
Also yesterday, the House of Representatives called on the Chief of Army Staff, Lt. Gen. Yusuf Tukur Buratai and the Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Ibrahim Idris, to set up a joint task force to deal with recent attacks in the Etsako area of Edo State.
The House equally asked the Department of State Security (DSS) to despatch its operatives to the constituency.
The call was sequel to the adoption of a motion titled: “Need to arrest and prosecute suspected “Boko Haram” members parading as herdsmen in Estako Federal Constituency,” sponsored by Johnson Oghuma.
The decision of the House came less than 48 hours after members held a closed-door session with the Minister of Interior, Gen. Abdulrahman Dambazzau (retd), Minister of Defence, Mansur Dan-Ali, Chief of Defence Staff, Maj. Gen. Abayomi Olonisakin and the Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Ibrahim Idris, over the spike incidents of insecurity such as kidnapping and herdsmen attacks in different parts of the country.
Oghuma, in his lead debate, pleaded that the joint task force be quickly put in place as the recent killing of a couple, Mr and Mrs. Wilson, of Elele village in Etsako area by persons suspected to be herdsmen, had put members of the community on the edge, with some aggrieved indigenes threatening to resort to “self help”.