By Omololu Ogunmade
The federal government will review conventional ways of handling security challenges, Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo said Tuesday.
The vice-president who was reacting to last weekend’s massacre of 43 farmers on their farms in Borno State by Boko Haram, made this remark in Lafia, while on a one-day official visit to Nasarawa State.
Answering questions from reporters on the development, Osinbajo echoed the president who had earlier described the Boko Haram insurgents who killed the farmers as insane.
According to a statement by his media aide, Mr. Laolu Akande, Osinbajo described the attack as tragic.
He said: “As the President said, this group of people have acted insanely in such a dastardly manner, killing innocent people, people who had gone to their farms to work.
“I spoke to the Governor, Governor Babagana Zulum and the former Governor, Senator Kashim Shettima to express my condolence, but more importantly, to try and think through ways of dealing with this kind of random attacks.
“It’s important to understand also that we will probably need to keep reviewing the conventional means of dealing with some of these issues, these security challenges, especially the randomness, which is why the president has said that he is taking a serious look at how to deal with the issues, especially the randomness.
“Some insane persons go into a place and shoots people, that is not the sort of thing that you are prepared for conventionally.
“We have to do a lot more local intelligence and some of the community policing efforts we are planning on, so that information is supplied faster, especially at the local level and then a reaction will then be possible.
“”It is a major tragedy; it’s a very unfortunate thing and our hearts are with the family of those who were killed in such a terrible manner.
“We are very confident and the Federal Government will continue to do what it needs to do especially in terms of trying to ensure security in the Northeast and all over Nigeria.”
