Why President won’t honour House invitation, by official

President Goodluck Jonathan may not honour the invitation of the House of Representatives for a session on the Boko Haram insurgency – for “security reasons”.Some presidency officials have opened talks with the House’s leadership on available options.

Options include: •Sending officers such as the National Security Adviser (NSA), the service chiefs, the Inspector-General of Police (IGP) and the Director General of State Security Service (SSS) to brief the House; •a restricted interaction between the President and the House leadership; and •forwarding a detailed report on how the government is addressing the insecurity in the North.

Following fresh gun attacks on Yobe and Kaduna, the House, on June 19, summoned the President to interact with him on how to check the recurring insecurity in some parts of the North.

But the invitation has raised constitutional issues on the right of the House to do so.

Sources told our correspondent that the President might not appear before the House because of the sensitive nature of the issue.

A top government official, who spoke in confidence, said: “Going by the sensitive nature of the issue in question, the President may not honour the invitation of the House. Some of the challenges and classified information are not what the state can just divulge to a large forum like the hallowed chamber of the House.

“The President does not mean to slight the House but he is trying to avoid a situation whereby members will dig into ‘delicate security matters.”

The official went on: “No doubt, the House deserves to know and have an update on the security situation in the country but there is no way the President will be there without going into sensitive operational details that might be detrimental to how the government is curtailing it.

“There is also the challenge of some members taking undue advantage of the President’s presence to play to the gallery. And instead of finding solutions, we may end up creating division.”

Responding to a question, the source added: “The Presidency is weighing other options which have been tabled before the House.

“I think in the next one or two weeks, the government officers would have reached a compromise with the House leadership.

“So, you can see that the presidency is willing to compare notes with the House of Representatives on the insecurity in the country. The area of disagreement is just the modalities.”

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