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Masari offers panacea to executive, legislature face-off
From Pascal Nwigwe, Abuja
AS a way out of the logjam created by incessant disputes and muscles-flexing between the Executive and the Legislature, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Aminu Bello Masari, has suggested equal participation in policy formulation and implementation between the two arms of government.
Masari, who spoke with members of Course 26 (2004) at the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies, Kuru, Jos Plateau State, stated that the country should redefine the concept of national security to make it distinct from mere equipping and arming the military, police and state security services.
The Speaker decried the prevailing situation where middle-level senior officials in the ministries and Budget Office of the Federation exert more influence in budget formation and citing of projects than members of the National Assembly.
He said it is both human and indeed legitimate for members of the National Assembly to feel detached from and indifferent to what is happening in the country, their states and constituencies if they are not involved in the programmes that affect the security and welfare of the people who elected them.
"In fact, often the members become objects of derision and sour jokes in their communities as a result of their apparent irrelevance in the process of governance", Masari pointed out.
The course participants were led by Maj.-Gen. Martins Osahon of the Nigerian Army.
On national security, Masari said it lay with the legislative and executive arms of government to articulate and implement "practicable security agenda for the economy, taking full cognisance of national peculiarities and aspirations".
To attain this, we must redefine our concept of security to recognise its inextricable links with political, economic and social, cultural, health, environmental, military and spiritual components.
The aim is to gradually demilitarise security by ensuring that it is relocated to its primary function of protecting citizens from adversity and want and in the service of the general interest, governed by democratic principles and laws, the Speaker stated.
He added that the new vision of security for the country must depart from "the militaristic and lethal element of the security paraphernalia to incline towards social justice, job creation, welfare and dialogue".
The new national security direction, he said, would place emphasis on redefinition of budgeting priorities in favour of education, food production, health, housing and environmental management, as well as capacity-building and adequate training of the police in crime detection techniques and placement of a system of early forecasting of conflicts.
The Course 26 (2004) will be submitting its special project titled "Security and Democratic Governance" to the President later in the year.
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