The House of Representatives has urged the Federal Government to provide logistics and financial resources to the Armed Forces to enable them to engage and train local vigilantes in the fight against insurgency.
This followed a unanimous adoption of a motion by Hon. Haruna Mshelia at plenary on Thursday.
While moving the motion, Mshelia said that the engagement with local vigilantes would assist in the final push to end insurgency in the Northeast.
The lawmaker expressed concern that pockets of insurgency activities, including looting, kidnappings and killings still continued in spite of efforts of the Armed Forces.
The legislator said that insurgency was mostly local in nature, thus the role of community engagement and participation through the use of local vigilante and hunters could be best exploited.
He said: “Most, if not all the communities in the Northeast, have local vigilance groups and hunters, that know all the nooks and crannies of their various communities.
“If those vigilance groups and hunters are given formal training by the Armed Forces on an ad hoc basis, they will be of great assistance to the Armed Forces in flushing out the remnants of the insurgents in their various localities.”
The House noted that the participation of the local community in the final push to bring insurgency to an end could not be over emphasised.
It commended the efforts of the security forces in the fight against insurgency and also the role of Civilian Joint Task Forces in assisting the operations of the Armed Forces.
The Green Chambers also acknowledged the laudable plan by the Theatre Command, the 7th Brigade, Nigeria Army, Maiduguri, to train about 1000 vigilantes and hunters.
It, however, said the the plan needed to be scaled up to cover the entire zone and with appropriate logistics and resources to go with it.
The House further mandated the Committee on Internally Displaced Persons, Refugees and Initiatives on North East Zone to ensure that funds were included in the 2020 budget for them.
Insecurity: Reps task FG on training of vigilantes
