A number of Senate’s Standing Committees have clear assignments in the area of national security. There is the Committee on National Security and Intelligence, headed by Senator Nuhu Aliyu, one of the veteran lawmakers of this era and then the Committee on Police Affairs, now headed by Senator Rahmon Olalekan Mustapha. There are also the committees in charge of defence issues (Army, Navy and Airforce). One other standing committee, which is assigned some paramilitary duties and, in a way, looks to the sanctity of internal security in the land, is the Committee on Interior, which supervises the Immigrations and Civil Defence Corps.

All these committees have clear cut assignments bordering on national security. Each time issues of security concerns get propped up in the polity, one or all of the committees are challenged to get to the root of the matter.

Going by the configuration of the standing committees, it became clear that background in certain fields informed the placement of each chairman. For instance, the National Security and Intelligence Committee is placed in the hands of Senator Nuhu Aliyu, a former Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIG), and he is being assisted by Senator Simeon Oduoye, another retired DIG. The Committee on Defence and Army is under the Chairmanship of Senator Ibrahim Idah, a retired Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Defence.

With such pedigree, you expect the Senate standing committees to rise to the occasion each time a security challenge erupts in parts of the country.

In the nearly four years of the Senate however, most of the security issues have been treated with utmost secrecy. At the end of the day, the public neither gets results nor is informed of what the committees are up to. Each time the heads of such agencies are invited to the National Assembly, the meetings are held behind closed doors and that ends the show.

Now, the nation is treated to another alarm and the circus has been repeated over and over. Perhaps a rethink is coming on board now, with the declaration by Senate President David Mark in the wake of the dastardly killing of the governorship candidate of the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), Alhaji Fannami Modu Gubio, and five others on Friday.

Mark, who described the killing as brutal and unacceptable, immediately directed the Security and Intelligence committees of the Senate to get to the root of the matter. He said that the standing committees  and all other relevant committees in the chamber would commence full investigations into the circumstances leading to the brutal killing of the gubernatorial candidate of  Alhaji Gubio, the younger brother of Governor Alli Modu Sheriff.

The Senate president said that all standing committees of the Senate would be empanelled to  carry out investigations and ensure that perpetrators are brought to justice, adding that the Senate has extended its concern to the governor of Borno State, Alhaji Sheriff,  and the people of the state and that the upper chamber has expressed grave concern about the spate violence in the country. He stated that the Senate would move in to complement the efforts of security operatives to unmask the killers of the Borno six.

The Senate President also warned that the nation’s emerging democracy, which, he said,  ordinarily gives everybody a sense of belonging, should not be taken for granted and that lawlessness and violence should not be permitted to become the order of the day.

He stated that in collaboration with the executive arm of government, the Senate would partner with all relevant agencies to address the  security challenges in the country.

“We owe it a duty to protect our citizens. Nobody, no matter the level of anger, should take the life of another. This growing trend of violence is a direct affront on the people and government. It cannot be tolerated any more.

“The Senate and, indeed, the National Assembly will invoke the relevant sections of the law and bring it to bear on the perpetrators of this mayhem. Nigeria is bigger than any individual or group interest,” he said.

He added that with such killings, it has become obvious that “some persons are becoming too desperate and impatient to allow due process to be followed.”

With such words from the Senate’s helmsman, it could be said that a new awakening is emerging from the chamber. Similar concern are needed to resolve the spate of violence in Jos, Plateau State; the Boko Haram violence in the North and similar unwarranted violence across the nation. The red chamber can, indeed, go far in bringing solutions to the table.