By Michael Olugbode
Governor of North East states on Tuesday said the call for engagement of mercenaries to fight Boko Haram should be taken seriously.
The governors call came a day after Borno State Governor, Prof. Babagana Zulum, as part of his six-point recommendation on how to end the decade old crisis, asked that mercenaries should be deployed to fight the insurgents.
Taraba State Governor, Ishaku Darius, who led other governors from the Northeast sub-region to condole with the governor and people of Borno State on the massacre of rice farmers on a field in troubled Borno State, said: “Our dear brother, we are here to condole with you over the killing of farmers by Boko Haram insurgents.
“We are indeed saddened and traumatized. I will key into your request, which you said that the federal government should invite some mercenaries to come and help us out of this problem, because what you can’t do, what you can’t solve, I think we should invite who can solve it for us.
“We cannot continuously be mourning, there has to be a time to stop the mourning. All of us in the North East Governors Forum, we are pleading with the federal government to find a solution to the issue of Boko Haram because if we neglect it, it will become worse.”
The Taraba State governor also appealed to the federal government to look into the infrastructural deficit in the northeast region.
He said: “We also call on the Federal government to look at the northeast with sympathy, it is embarrassing in the whole budget, what is given to the northeast is 0.35%. With all these problems we are having, with the insurgency, all the problems, with the insecurity, from the whole federal budget of Nigeria, only 0.35% allocated for the northeast.
“This is very very unfair. The federal government should look at the issue of infrastructure in the northeast, I will once again call on the federal government, the issue of Mambila hydropower project, 3,500 megawatts should be looked at as a matter of urgency. Without this power we will not indeed have any meaningful development.”
With Darius were governors of Adamawa, Bauchi and Gombe States, Ahmadu Fitiri, Senator Bala Mohammed and Mohammed Inuwa Yahaya, respectively.
Borno Governor Zulum expressed appreciation to the delegation for their visit to condole with the government and people of Borno State.
