A member of the House of Representatives, Honourable Abass Adigun, has personally funded the repair a dysfunctional borehole servicing policemen at the main police post at the entrance of the National Assembly and donated a new generator to power it.
Honourable Adigun, representing Ibadan North-East/Ibadan South-East Federal Constituency on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), clarified that his intervention was not intended to embarrass the management of the National Assembly, but was a demonstration of his commitment to the improvement of security personnel’s welfare.
Adigun, who is a retiree from the United States Navy, had moved a motion of the floor of the House, calling for conscious effort to be made to improve the wellbeing of security operatives so as to encourage them do more in the war against terror.
The first-term lawmaker said he was pained to see policemen guarding the National Assembly trek a long distance to get water, adding that upon enquiry, he discovered that the borehole servicing them had stopped working.
His intervention led to the resuscitation of the borehole, the procurement of a new submersible pump to run it and a generator to power it as well as provide electricity for the police post which, he said, had been cut off from the main power supply to the National Assembly complex.
“It is not that I have tons of personal money kept somewhere and it is not that I am getting loads of money from being a member of the House of Representatives. The gesture is a practical demonstration of my untiring commitment to the welfare of security personnel in the country.
“I was in the US Navy and I know what we enjoyed. Our welfare was top priority to government and we delivered 100 per cent on the mandate we were given by the US government prior to my retirement.
“We have to take care of the welfare of our security personnel in Nigeria. We keep talking about insecurity, particularly in the North-East, without thinking about the wellbeing of the personnel deployed to combat this menace.
“When security personnel are deployed for a special assignment as being done in the North-East and other parts of the country plagued by insecurity, the probability of them returning safely to re-unite with their families after the assignment is 50-50. To make matters worse, there are no life assurance policies for them.
“Before this gesture, I had met with the security personnel in all the police formations in my constituency and reached out to them during festive periods and will continue to do so. As a country, we need to do more for our security operatives,” he said.
