With the latest siege posed by early Monday’s Boko Haram attack on the Nigerian Air Force Base in Maiduguri, Supervising Minister of Defence, Labaran Maku, declared in Abuja on Tuesday that Nigeria is in a state of war, fighting enemies that do not wear uniform. He said such enemies could be identified as the musketeer. Speaking at a press conference on the activities lined up for 2014 Armed Forces Remembrance Day celebrations (AFRDC), Maku said the Defence Headquarters in Abuja has despatched a team of senior military officers to the Borno State capital with a mandate to assess the extent of damage caused by the insurgents’ bomb attack on the Air Force Base in the town that claimed several lives and left three military helicopters damaged.
He disclosed that the military has intensified recruitment and training in order to confront the insurgency to its logical conclusion. The minister expressed joy that from situation reports received so far, most of the insurgents that came for the attack did not go back. He urged the military to remain focused because insurgency is a guerrilla warfare with foreign collaborators that the Federal Government has been trying to identify. “As I am talking to you, the armed forces headquarters are in Maiduguri to give us details of what happened.” Reacting to a statement credited to the International Criminal Court (ICC) that Nigeria is fighting a civil war and not human right abuses, Maku described it as funny, asking the ICC to tell the world which part of Nigeria is fighting each other.
“They are terrorists with international network attacking peaceful people; they are terrorists and not civil war attacking peaceful people,” he said, adding that the whole nation was behind the armed forces in dealing with the insurgency. Meanwhile, governors elected on the platform of the All Progressives Congress have accused President Goodluck Jonathan of abandoning security of the country for his second term ambition. The APC governors, in a statement issued under the aegis of Progressives Governors Forum in Abuja on Tuesday, said this while commiserating with the people and the government of Borno State over the recent attacks on Maiduguri airport, Air Force Base and other areas of the state by Boko Haram insurgents and the attendant loss of lives and property.
The opposition governors, in a statement by the Director-General of the PGF, Mallam Salihu Lukman, said the security situation in several parts of the country had continued to deteriorate despite the extension of the state of emergency in some states and the huge sums of money supposedly spent on security. The statement said, “As it were, notwithstanding the fact that nearly one-third of this year’s federal government budget was devoted to defence and security, few Nigerians actually feel safe. “The most recent attack was particularly telling as it shows that President Goodluck Jonathan has no security agenda and is only focused on retaining power beyond 2015. “The result of this criminal negligence is the unabated slaughter of lives. Clearly the security structures set up in the region have been overwhelmed.”
PGF called on the President to reassess his security strategy and focus more on the critical issues of the day.” APC national leadership also condemned Monday’s attack on military and other facilities, saying it is shocked and saddened by the enormity of the attack as well as the deaths of innocent civilians. In a statement in Abuja on Tuesday by its Interim National Publicity Secretary, Lai Mohammed, the party said the attacks on Nigerian Air Force planes and helicopters at the NAF base in Maiduguri was particularly disturbing, considering the hitherto effective use of aerial attacks against Boko Haram. It said nothing in the world can justify such deadly attacks on the military and the collateral deaths and damages inflicted on civilians.
APC, however, called for a renewed strategy to combat the sect, which, it added, seems to retain the capacity to carry out such a massive attack in a major city, despite the successes which the military said it had recorded against it (Boko Haram) since the declaration of a state of emergency in three states last May. Meanwhile, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Ladi Rotimi-Williams, has urged the President to urgently address the security challenges in Borno by appointing military administrators for the state. Williams, who condemned the Monday attack on military base in Maiduguri, said though the emergency declaration has achieved some measure of result, it will further be productive if the political structures were removed and replaced with military administrators.
This according to him, will give the soldiers freedom to carry out their assignment.
“It is not possible for a caring President to fold his arms and do nothing. He has to do something and urgently too. I would even say that he should go further by appointing military administrators in these areas. “This is because it is obvious that the civilian administrators are just incapable of bringing about law and order. “In the Constitution, the Governors are the chief executive of the states but where he fails in his responsibility, the President has the power and the will to appoint military administrator to rule for a limited number of time until there is normalcy in those areas. “So, the President has done the right thing. My own is that they should go further than what they have done,” Williams said.
Another Lagos based lawyer, Festus Keyamo, said the terrorist attack has shown that the country’s security forces are not doing enough to curtail the activities of the Boko Haram sect. “I think the fear is that our security forces are just not doing enough. That is the fear being expressed by Nigerians now. “I mean if Boko Haram can still be carrying out attacks despite emergency rule, it shows something is fundamentally wrong somewhere,” he said. Members of the Lagos State House of Assembly also called on the President to summon courage and name Boko Haram sponsors his administration has identified to nip the insurgents in the bud rather than allow lives to waste as it is currently being witnessed in some parts of the country. This was contained in a statement on Tuesday by Chairman, House Committee on Information, Strategy, Security and Publicity, Segun Olulade.
The statement also charged the Federal Government to employ a result-oriented approach in curbing Boko haram insurgence in the most volatile North East states where a state of emergency has been declared. Former Governor of old Kaduna State and National Chairman of Peoples Redemption Party (PRP), Balarabe Musa, described the attack on military installations in Maiduguri as regrettable and unfortunate. Musa queried how the insurgents gained access into military formations despite the state of emergency in place in the area.
No comments:
Post a Comment