- Safiu Kehinde
The House of Representatives has on Tuesday demanded swift rescue of the schoolteachers and students abducted in Oriire Local Government Area of Oyo State.
Lawmakers, at the resumption of green chamber’s plenary session after Sallah break, charged the Federal Government and security agencies to ensure the safe rescue of the victims kidnapped in Baptist Nursery and Primary School (Yawota), Community Grammar School (Esiele), and L.A. Primary School.
In a motion raised by Olamijuwonlo Alao-Akala, the lawmaker representing Ogbomoso North, South, and Oriire Federal Constituency warned of losing the children and their teachers if the rescue mission is further delayed.
“Bring our remaining sons, daughters, and teachers home alive without further delay, for every hour lost is an hour in which we risk losing them forever, and that risk now outweighs every other consideration before us”, Alao-Akala noted.
While adopting the motion, the lawmakers noted that a permanent military forward operating base should be established in Oriire LGA to plant a sustained and dominating security presence across the Old Oyo National Park and its environs.
According to them, establishing a security presence is “so that this strategic frontier around the border corridors ceases to be a safe-haven for killers and a passage of terror into the South-West.”
They also called for the creation of state and local policing units.
“The House also resolved that the National Assembly and the Executive Arm must, without further excuse or delay, commence full implementation of the adopted resolution on a decentralised and regional security architecture.
“The creation of state police, local government policing units, decentralised courts, and an integrated national intelligence and surveillance network.
“People have waited long enough, and every further postponement is paid for in the blood of innocents, and brings the nation closer to being overrun”, The lawmakers argued.