After the fruitful engagement between the House of Representatives and the Service Chiefs, the importance of responding positively to invitations by the lawmakers should be more obvious to those in charge of our military and security services.

The Chiefs had stayed away from previous invitations, choosing instead to send their representations. The House had to write them once again, demanding their personal attendance and assuring them they were not being investigated. On November 22, 2023, all the Service Chiefs led by the Chief of Defence Staff, Lt-Gen Chris Musa, along with the Inspector General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun, attended. One by one, they briefed the legislators about the challenges, progress and needs of their services. We want to encourage our military and security chiefs to take the summons or invitations of the National Assembly more seriously.

Despite some of its controversial actions and decisions, the NASS represents the people. The loyalty which military officials so glibly pledge to civil authorities is not only about the president. Indeed, because the NASS symbolises the people and the Constitution, it also symbolises civil authority. One of the benefits of that interaction was that we got to know that some elements in our society are deliberately sabotaging efforts to overcome terrorism and banditry.

The lamentation by former President, Goodluck Jonathan that Boko Haram existed in his government continues to hold true till this day. According to General Musa, arrested Boko Haram terrorists and bandits plan attacks from behind prison walls with the collaboration of wardens of correctional centres, especially in the NorthEast. Not only that, even some judges and magistrates are often quick to release Islamic terrorism suspects, thus endangering the lives of military personnel and civilian partners who are working together to stamp out terrorism.

These misguided individuals do this either for material gain or because they believe in the same evil ideology being pursued by the jihadist groups. It is gladdening that the Ministry of Interior has started probing the claim. This vicious cycle has been with us for 14 years now. Poverty is a known factor that feeds terrorism and banditry. Some misguided elements in society compromise and receive favours from the criminals to aid them in their evil work.

In so doing, the poverty worsens because the violence does not allow people to return to their communities and means of livelihood. The major issue here is that the effort purportedly made to connect every citizen to a central database through phones; bank accounts and the national identification scheme have not produced the desired results.

Terrorists, fraudsters and heinous criminals still operate and successfully evade our security agencies. We urge the Bola Tinubu administration to rejig the security apparatus and put in people who can effectively deploy intelligence to tackle terrorism and banditry. To effectively tackle our security challenges, we must take the deployment of technology to its logical conclusion.