The Nigerian Senate on Thursday approved the request by President Goodluck Jonathan for an extension of emergency rule in Adamawa, Borno and Yobe States, one week after it received the request.
The upper legislature also demanded that full military operations be undertaken on a sustained basis to flush out the Boko Haram insurgents from the states.
Mr. Jonathan had last Tuesday asked the two chambers of the National Assembly to extend the state of emergency in the north eastern three states due to continued threats of the insurgent.
While the House of Representatives approved the request last Wednesday, the Senate deferred debate on it, preferring to meet first with the service and security chiefs who it summoned to appear before it to brief the senators on the level of performance on the current emergency rule in the affected states.
The resolution of the upper legislative chamber followed a motion by the Senate Leader, Victor Ndoma-Egba, last week, asking that debate on the issue be stood down till another legislative day in other to receive briefing from the service chiefs.
“Secondly, it is the tradition of this Senate that we appraise and assess the performance of the state of emergency before we debate it,” he had stated.
The Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, who presided over the plenary session, noted that the motion was crucial because it concerned the security of the nation.
The senators had met with the service chiefs on Thursday, but deferred debate on the extension request till Tuesday.
The senators from the North under the aegis of Northern Senators Forum, NSF, had after about a three-hour meeting on Thursday vowed to frustrate moves for the extension.
The House of Representatives approved the extension of the emergency rule after a three hour closed-door session with the service chiefs, who said that no election could hold in the three troubled states as Nigeria was at war.
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