Senate urges ministry to fund its yearly cyber security confab

Says re-ordering of polls allows for election of candidates on merit
The Senate Committee on Information Communication Technology (ICT) has pleaded with the Ministry of Communication to provide fund for its yearly conference on cyberspace security.

The committee, headed by Abdulfatahi Buhari (APC, Oyo North), made the request during the 2018 budget defence session of the ministry.

Specifically, the Vice Chairman of the committee, Fosta Ogola (PDP, Bayelsa West), said in the N6.94 billion 2018 budget estimates of the ministry presented by the minister, Adebayo Shittu, there was no provision for the yearly conference on cyberspace security the committee started last year.

He said: “Mr. minister, I have gone through all your proposed expenditure of the 2018 budget of your ministry without seeing any headline or item capturing the yearly cyberspace security workshop started by this committee last year.

“We appreciated your ministry’s funding of last year’s conference and since it is a yearly programme, we expected you to have factored it into your ministry’s 2018 budget projections.

“The programme is very important since it is aimed at addressing our highly vulnerable cyberspace.”

The request was further reinforced by the chairman of the committee who said funding of the programme by the ministry should be part of its priorities towards getting the required strategies and ideas of fortifying the Nigerian cyberspace.

Shittu assured the committee of doing the needful but also begged them to fast-track work on amendment bill to the Cyber Council Act towards empowering the ministry in the monitoring and management of cyberspace activities in the country.

In another development, the Upper Chamber has said that the rearrangement of the order of election as passed by the House of Representatives, if adopted by the conference committee of both Houses of the National Assembly, would help the electorate to judge each candidate on his or her own merit at each level of election.

Deputy President of the Senate, Ike Ekweremadu, who stated this yesterday while receiving a delegation of the British High Commission in Nigeria led by the High Commissioner, Mr. Paul Arkwright, assured that legislative work on the Electoral Act and the Co nstitution amendment would be concluded in a matter of weeks.

Ekweremadu, who expressed gratitude to the British government for always showing interest in state of the Nigerian union and her democracy, said that concluding the amendments to the Electoral Act and Constitution amendment was top on the priority list of the Eighth National Assembly to ensure better governance and smooth elections in 2019. The British High Commissioner, Mr. Arkwright, said they had come to see the Deputy President of the Senate on political developments, especially as it concerned the legislative activities of the National Assembly and others.”