Kemi Olaitan
Pan-Yoruba socio-political organisation, Afenifere, yesterday called on the federal government to take urgent decisive, enduring and sincere actions against terrorists who are daily gaining grounds in order to prevent the country from going into disintegration.
The group in a statement signed by its National Publicity Secretary, Comrade Jare Ajayi, while listing the atrocities by the terrorists to include the overran in broad day light of the police divisional headquarters in Umulokpa, Uzo-Uwani LGA of Enugu State, abduction of a police officer and seven inmates of St. Albert the Great Institute of Philosophy, a Catholic Seminary in Fayit, Kaduna State, said they epitomized the level of how the government is failing in the most basic of its responsibilities which is protection of the citizens.
According to him, the insurgents were forcing the residents of some communities in the Northern part of the country into becoming Boko Haram members and equipping them to fight against the government, stating that
Governor Abubakar Sani Bello of Niger State recently disclosed that terrorists had captured some areas in the state and had even hoisted their flags in those communities.
He said: “Before then, Nassarawa State Governor, Abdullah Sule, had made a similar declaration. He even went further to remind the federal government and security agencies that Nasarawa is very close to Aso Rock, the country’s seat of power. As such, allowing the terrorists to establish in the state can be dangerous not only to his state but also to the country. Not long after he sounded the warning, the Taliban took over power in Afghanistan – to the chagrin of virtually the whole world.”
Ajayi maintained that Niger and Nasarawa are not the only states that terrorists have set up camps in, insisting that Zamfara, Borno, Kaduna, Benue, Yobe States have cache of lands where bandits have established themselves from which they unleash terror on the people and government interests.
He stated further that in the South-west, Ibadan to Ijebu-Ode highway, parts of Ondo, Ekiti, Ogun and Osun States posted cases of armed attacks and abductions almost on a daily basis same as in Edo State, among other states.
He said from the utterances of President Muhammadu Buhari within and outside the country he is very much aware of the security challenges facing the country as well as the way out, noting that as far back as 2011 during his campaign for presidency under the banner of the defunct Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), he promised that the policing system in the country would be decentralized such that the state, local governments and the communities would have their own police.
According to him, it is still possible to reverse the trend, stating some of the ways to do this include doing away with primordial cleavages, equipping security agencies particularly the army and the police.
He added government should also boost the morale of the Police with good pay and good welfare packages, letting perpetrators of banditry face the full wrath of the law without let or hindrance while impunity must stop now.
“Others are allowing state governors to truly become the chief security officers of their respective states by letting them have their own policing system with all the powers they need to operate with, conveying meetings of all or virtually all ethnic nationalities across the country and should include various interest groups and stakeholders”, he said.
