*Ndume hails Tinubu for honouring fallen soldiers
Sunday Aborisade in Abuja
A pan-Yoruba socio-cultural and political organisation, Afenifere, yesterday, expressed concerns on the fatal attacks on police officers barely 11 days after a similar fatal attack on military personnel in Delta State.
The apex Yoruba organisation has also lauded President Bola Tinubu on how he made the country to appreciate the sacrifice of the gallant soldiers, who were dastardly murdered.
In a press release by the organisation’s National Publicity Secretary, Jare Ajayi, in Abuja, Afenifere congratulated Tinubu, elders in the North, security agencies and the governors of Kaduna and Zamfara States for the safe retrieval of Kuriga and Sokoto kidnapped students.
Afenifere spoke following the latest abductions in the North, the killing of 17 soldiers and six policemen in Delta State, including the missing of another six policemen in the same Delta State within two weeks.
The group, while stressing the need to take a deeper look at the modus operandi of security agencies, recalled the reports coming from the fields of operation including the disclosures by army chiefs.
Afenifere noted that the army commander said soldiers could not immediately deter bandits, who attacked Benue communities on the eve of Christmas last year because the former were not accustomed to the topography as much as the bandits.
The Yoruba apex body added that the Chief of Defence Staff, General Chris Musa, Monday, March 25, 2024, told Reuters news agency, that the military found it difficult to be ahead of bandits because of the advantages the bandits usually have once they get into the forests with their victims.
This, it said, normally occurred partly due to the misinformation given by the people and also because kidnappers knew the terrain more.
It said the fact that Nigeria’s vast northern borders not adequately patrolled made the situation worse.
Afenifere, therefore, called on the government to pay attention to issues implied in the disclosure by the Chief of Defence Staff.
The group stressed the need to increase the numerical strength of security personnel so that they would be able to sufficiently and efficiently man all areas deserving to be manned, including the need to have necessary equipment.
Meanwhile, the Chief Whip of the Senate, Ali Ndume, has hailed Tinubu for conferring posthumous awards on soldiers slain by yet-to-be identified assailants in Okuama, Delta State.
Ndume, who gave the commendation in a statement said, “Each man now belongs to the hallowed list of servicemen and women, who defended our country and protected their fellow Nigerians, not minding the risk to their own lives,” he said.
Hailing Tinubu for the gesture, he said for attending the funeral, the President has demonstrated that he is patriotic, and called on political leaders and Nigerians to put their differences aside and unite in honouring the fallen heroes.
