House of Representatives Committee on Defence will be meeting with the Minister of Defence, Abubakar Badaru and the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), General Christopher Musa on Monday to find how the military plans to carry out the presidential directive to the Armed Forces on farming to ensure that all the land they have is cultivated.
The Chairman of the Committee, Benson who stated this when he spoke with journalists in Abuja on Tuesday, thanked President Bola Tinubu for mandating the Armed Forces to also put farming on the front burner to ensure they cultivate all lands allocated to the military.
He said: “If there is food security, insecurity will go down. So the Army takes possession let’s say they have 1 million hectares somewhere, there is not going to be insecurity.
“So we are taking the initiative, by next Monday, we are going to call the Minister of Defence, Chief of Defence Staff to come and explain to us how they want to transform Mr President’s directives into reality. Let the armed forces who protect us, cultivate all the vast land they have.
The lawmaker who also hailed President Tinubu for ensuring that there is local government autonomy, said the development will help in addressing insecurity in the country as security starts from the grassroots and with the autonomy, local government council chairmen will have more funds to develop their areas and secure lives as well as properties.
The lawmaker representing Ikorodu Federal Constituency of Lagos State stressed that the financial autonomy to local government would spur development and close ungoverned spaces which induced insecurity.
“I will give super kudos to the President of Nigeria for ensuring that there is local government autonomy because security starts from the grassroots. So, if you empower a local government to have full receipt of their monthly applications, they don’t have immunity like the governors and people are aware that now the shackles are broken, I don’t think there will be any stretch or space in Nigeria that will not be governable.
“When I received a report from my military people, they tell us that there are a lot of ungovernable spaces, they are areas where no single government presence exists. These will be made aware that this local government that is next to the border or whatsoever has received so much money. So, it also behoves the people to be wise in choosing people that administer them because if you do that, this is a game changer in my opinion.
“There will be competition amongst local governments, there will be a spur to develop if they receive their full money and people will be moving from one local government to the other because these local government chairmen can concentrate on his campaign promise, some can be water, some can be infrastructure, some can be housing, some can be medical, some can have super fire service, some can have schools, different things. I think it is a game changer that can be catalytic for Nigeria’s development,” he said.
He also elaborated on his motion in which the House asked the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission, FCCPC, to immediately halt the unfair business practices against Air Peace, Dangote and other businesses by certain foreign businesses operating in Nigeria.
“I moved the motion, my intention was to ensure that there is fairness, justice, and good conscience in doing business in Nigeria. It will be very unfair if there are conspiracies by foreign companies to undermine Nigerian companies. What we frown against is these companies coming together to offer predatory prices that are below the market rates in order to edge out Nigerian-owned enterprises.
“These practices they do not do in their own countries. It can stifle Nigerian businesses by reducing their prices and then they jerk up the prices. So it is speculated that this happened against Air Peace. At some points, tickets from Lagos to London were selling as high as N4 million. All of a sudden, a local company came in and all these companies just dropped prices lower than what Air Peace was offering. So, you ask yourself, why this sudden drop is this sudden dropped aim to undermine or get Air Peace out of it and once Air Peace is out of it, the prices go up. There is also a flip side that at the end of the day Air Peace can also be added to that cartel.
“So my motion is not to protect Air Peace alone but to protect Nigerians to let them know that there are opportunities for operators in a certain industry to collude and whenever it pleases them, some will lower their prices, whenever it pleases others, they all collude.
“Second, we spoke about Dangote, there is also a need to investigate because if Dangote Refinery (is reason for) this non-sell of crude oil is not part of the predatory way of ensuring that Nigeria keeps importing and Dangote refinery is left out.
“I am saying the Nigerian authorities, the FCPC should also be watchful of this and make sure that if there is a gang up to stifle Nigerians they should quickly step into it or do an investigative hearing. So the world is aware that Nigeria is informed about predatory pricing strategies.
“The agency (FCPC) should be alert to its responsibility to know that its mandate is huge, the mandate is to protect Nigerians from being exploited by these oligarchs. The legislation on consumer protection is very robust. It’s new, it is one of the freshest legislations we have, I think the law was passed in the twilight of the Buhari administration.
“So, I think the operators of law should ensure that they study and apply the full essence of the clauses that are contained to prevent these practices. It’s a wake-up call, it is a motion to make them wake up to their responsibility and to let them know that, that agency can add tremendously to Nigerian sustenance of its business ecosystem.”
On State Police, he said: “If I have power to make legislation I will say state policing is not by force. If you want it, apply. If a governor applies for state policing, the authority vetting it, be the Police Service Commission or whatever, looks at it and if they pass they should be given on a pilot scheme. There should also be conditions if you give them the license and they don’t do well you can suspend, revoke and you may not renew.”