A serving federal lawmaker, Jimoh Ibrahim has claimed that his mobile phone detected over 277 guns around the Senate chamber.
Ibrahim mentioned this on Wednesday during the plenary session while canvasing for the immediate integration of technology into the fight against insurgency and terrorism in the country.
His remark was a contribution to a motion raised by Senator Ali Ndume of Borno South over the recent bombings in the northeast state.
“I don’t want to take much of your time but I will say clearly it costs nothing for the intelligent army to get devices in their phone to know where these notorious criminals live,” the lawmaker representing Ondo South was quoted by Channels TV.
He continued: “As I am here, I check my phone regularly and I know the number of guns that are very close to me here. This is just less than one thousand installations. Within us now, there are over 277 guns around here just because an armoury is close to this place.”
When Senate President Godswill Akpabio asked him, “Of the 277 guns around you here, do you know how many of them have bullets inside?” the lawmaker said since there was an amoury close to the National Assembly, the senators were safe.
The lawmaker emphasised the need for the military to use technology in the fight against insurgency.
“So, what I am saying? We can use technology, just like distinguished Senator Ndume had said, to deploy technology rather than using soldiers,” he said.
“I want to say very clearly that the military should stop using unconventional strategies to fight insurgency in Nigeria. There is a distinction between unconventional and conventional strategy. We need to use conventional strategy to fight unconventional war. Boko Haram is an unconventional war,” Senator Jimoh argued.
“We are all aware of what happened in Kenya. We cannot close our eyes, we need to wake up. So, I will finally suggest to you, Mr Senate President, and my distinguished colleagues, that this Senate under your leadership, sir, must have a closed-door meeting for one day and then use that whole day to discuss security matters. Our lives are very important.”
Senator Jimoh described the Gwoza, Borno State bombings as saddening and an embarrassment.
“Living with insecurity cannot be the only way to understand security. We should not get to that,” he said, wondering: “How can you be going to a wedding and somebody just put a bomb to attack you and people started dying? It is uncalled for, it is rejected in the totality of its formulation.”
