By opting for the easy option of summits, the senate appears to have abandoned its oversight responsibilities to check insecurity in Nigeria
Last week, the senate resolved to convene a national security summit. However for Sen. Abdul Ningi (PDP, Bauchi central), the proposal was symptomatic of a deeper malaise: the legislative branch’s addiction to talkshops and photo-ops, while hard questions about money, procurement, and accountability are left unanswered.
During plenary penultimate Tuesay, Sen. Ningi rebuked the national assembly’s handling of security oversight, calling for an urgent interrogation of its security-related committees.
He pointedly accused the senate of abdicating its constitutional responsibility to scrutinise defence spending and military procurement and opting for summits instead.
Ningi made the remarks while contributing to a motion on the urgent need to organise a two-day national security summit in Abuja to address Nigeria’s deepening insecurity and rising global threats.
In his intervention, Ningi challenged the senate’s leadership to account for the work of the defence, navy, air force, police, and national security committees, which he said had not been properly interrogated despite the worsening security situation across the country.
“How many times have we interrogated committees on defence, navy, air force, police, and national security?” Ningi demanded.
It was a question laced with indictment because the answer, as many in the chamber knew, was damningly few.
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The silence of the committees
At the core of Ningi’s criticism is a painful truth: the committees tasked with overseeing Nigeria’s security apparatus have quiet corridors of complicity.
In 2024 alone, the federal government allocated over N3.25 trillion to defence and security, nearly a fifth of the national budget and yet, Nigeria remains under siege: from bandits in Niger and Katsina, to insurgents in Borno, and now increasingly, criminal gangs inching into Abuja’s backyard.
Where is the money going?
That is the question Ningi has been asking loudly while others remain content with closed-door briefings and rubber-stamped reports. Ningi is not just questioning outcomes; he is questioning processes. He wants to know who is responsible for procurement. Who ordered what? Who delivered it? Who is shielding them?
Tucano and the billion-dollar blackout
Nowhere is the murkiness of Nigeria’s defence procurement more evident than in the case of the A-29 Super Tucano aircraft deal.
Procured under the former President Muhammadu Buhari administration for a staggering $1 billion loan, the Tucanos were supposed to be game-changers in the war against terror but as Ningi revealed, they are now mostly idle. Why? Because the terms of the contract allegedly restrict their use.
“Tucano is in our domain, but we can no longer use it because they have signed a contract which limited the operations of this Tucano,” Ningi quoted a military chief as saying.
This is more than procurement malpractice. If Nigeria cannot freely deploy its own warplanes during a national crisis after borrowing a billion dollars to buy them, then what kind of governance is it practising?
Ningi’s question, “Why buy them?” is less a demand for technical clarification and more a call for political reckoning. Why did the national assembly not raise alarms earlier?
The senator is effectively accusing his own institution of sleeping at the wheel.
Budget without oversight
Not only are weapons possibly unusable, but the money meant to sustain operations is also going unaccounted. According to data from BudgIT, the national assembly introduced hundreds of “inserted” projects into the 2024 budget, many of them security-related—without proper costing or committee scrutiny.
Yet, there has been little to no full hearing on the implementation of the 2023 or 2024 defence budgets.
This makes Ningi’s intervention more urgent. If oversight fails at the appropriation stage and at the implementation level, then Nigeria is running a parallel war economy where money flows, weapons trickle in, and accountability disappears.
Insecurity in Nigeria’s capital
Ningi also drew attention to a stark and symbolic warning: Kwali and Kubwa, both suburbs of Abuja, are no longer safe after dark.
“You can no longer go to Kwali or Kubwa beyond 9 or 10 p.m. without fear of being taken away,” he lamented.
These words hit differently because Abuja has long been considered the safest part of the country. If the Federal Capital Territory can be infiltrated, then nowhere is safe.
Indeed, incidents of kidnappings and attacks in Abuja’s satellite towns have risen sharply over the last few years. This wasn’t just a data point for Ningi, it was a warning shot. A call to treat the national security crisis not as a distant northern insurgency, but as a national emergency.
Motions without Movements?
For too long, the national assembly has defaulted to motion without movement, passing resolutions, organising summits, and issuing statements while real oversight is buried in subcommittees and closed sessions.
Ningi is only challenging that culture saying: enough summits, enough silence, enough pretending the national assembly is an innocent bystander in a crisis it has the power and responsibility to help solve.
