BY JOSEPH ERUNKE

CONFERENCE Committee on National Security has rejected President Goodluck Jonathan’s proposal to further extend the one-year state of emergency imposed on Adamawa, Borno and Yobe states.

The committee, which described the move as “undesirable”, asked the president to explore other avenues of tackling the insurgency plaguing the northern part of the country, saying emergency, since its declaration a year ago has rather strengthened the activities of the insurgents.

Chairman of the committee and former Inspector-General of Police, Alhaji Gambo Jimeta (rtd), at a news briefing at the National Judiciary Institute, NJI, said the state of emergency has outlived its usefulness.
Gambo, who insisted that the state of emergency was no longer desirable in any state of the world, said there was no total breakdown of law and order to necessitate the president’s action.

”It is not desirable in any state in the world.
A reporter asked me yesterday why Chief Awolowo’s Western Region government was put under emergency, why did Obasanjo declare emergency in Plateau. These are circumstances that happened. In the case of the Western Region, I was alive and I knew what happened.

There was a total breakdown of law and order, people were being burnt in their cars, houses and so on, it was necessary for the Federal Government to step in and stop that and it did not last more than necessary,” he recalled.

“We have been under emergency rule for how long now? One year in the three states affected, and there is no improvement. So we have to now review the whole thing, reassess the whole thing, there is something more than just declaring emergency rule.

If you declare an emergency rule in such disturbed states, you should have enough resources to revamp the architecture of security in those states immediately and for a long time to come while you also bring the other states into consideration so that this thing will not happen again,” he said.
SOURCE : http://www.vanguardngr.com/2014/05/insecurity-cttee-rejects-emergency-rule-extension/