the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS)
have been killed by Boko Haram
insurgents, it was learnt yesterday.
There have been 11 jail breaks across the
country believed to have been carried out
by insurgents in which many prison
officers were killed, Senator Atiku Bagudu
said yesterday.
Bagudu is the chair, Senate Committee on
Interior. He spoke in Abuja.
He said the figures were given to
members of his committee when they
went on oversight function.
He noted that though the country's
Northeast borders had posed some
problems in an attempt to curtail the
activities of insurgents, the deployment of
technology and the increment in
personnel would check the menace.
He said: "We need to give more arms to
the prison service. The prison service
should not be considered a secondary arm
of the security system, it is a major one."
He noted that the failure of the Senate to
transfer Prisons Service from the
Exclusive List to the Concurrent List
during the Constitution amendment
reflected the fear the lawmakers have for
state police because prison officials also
bear arms.
Bagudu said the country's border with
Cameroon has always posed a problem.
He said: "Chadians coming to the
northeast are always armed and use
firearms, because Chad had been at war."
He added: "We are members of the
ECOWAS group of nations. We are
committed to free entry and exit. Even if
we seal our borders, we can't stop
ECOWAS members from coming into our
country.
"Fencing four thousand miles border will
be very difficult. Technology has changed
the way we monitor the borders, with
increased use of technology and more
personnel, we can achieve more with less
spending."
He also commented on the voting on
amendment to Section 29 of the
Constitution which defined the age when
a person comes to a full age, with an
addition spelling out that a woman who is
married is deemed to be of full age.
He said: "The argument that brought
about this furore is the renunciation of
citizenship. There was an attempt to
remove its second element which relates
to a woman who is married and that
failed.
"It is a total misrepresentation that the
Senate has approved child marriage.
Marriage is regulated by the Marriage Act,
Islamic laws and Customary Law. What
you find missing in these laws is the
absence of the definition of the age of
marriage.
Around the world, marriage below the
age of 18 is allowed. I am not saying that
it is right, but it is allowed. We were not
debating child marriage, and that is not
what we contemplated.
Senator Akin Odunsi, (Ogun West) who
also spoke on the controversial issue,
noted that the Senate did not create the
Section.
Odunsi said the provision was extant in
the Constitution and that the Review
Committee recommended that it be
removed, but the Senate could not raise
the number of votes to delete it.
The lawmaker noted that public reaction
tended to indicate that the Senate
inserted the clause into the Constitution.
He insisted that it was wrong to say that
the Senate passed a law on child
marriage.
On Local Government autonomy, Senator
Odunsi said although the Senate voted
against the recommendation, there was
still need for the third tier of government
to be well funded so that they could meet
their obligations to the people.
"Funding of local governments at the
moment is inadequate. I think we can
only expect that the state governments
should adequately finance local
government. This is because they are the
closest to the people and they need to
carry out their responsibilities to the
people," he said.
He explained that most Senators felt that
granting local autonomy amounted to
creating a state within a state.
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