Governor Kashim Shetima of Borno State on Wednesday swore that he was prepared to sacrifice his life for peace to return to his state which had been under an emergency rule since 2013.
The governor however said he was not afraid should the Federal Government decide to extend the emergency rule, noting that afterall, the state of emergency imposed on the state and two others had over the year proved to be ineffective.
President Goodluck Jonathan had on April 14, 2013 declared a state of emergency in three states of Borno , Adamawa and Yobe as result of insecurity in that zone.
While carpeting the military for inefficiency, the governor, who spoke on the heels of a reported attacks on the villages of Ran and Kala Balge in the state, where over 200 suspected members of the Boko Haram sect were engaged by the youths of the communities, leaving many casualties, insisted that the emergency rule had been ineffective.
The governor, while speaking on the Hausa Service of the British Broadcasting Corporation, monitored in Kaduna on Wednesday, said during the Boko Haram attack on Giwa Barracks in Maiduguri, it was the civilian JTF that confronted the terrorists and not the Army.
“This state of emergency is useless. These wicked people had a field day when they annexed Giwa barracks. The civilian JTF, who confronted them, many had died,”he said.
He regretted that the condition of life in his state was degenerating as people wallow in poverty because the insurgents had made it impossible for business to thrive in the state and had rendered farming activities impossible.
Shetima, who claimed his major concern was to rescue the abducted Chibok schoolgirls and not bothered with the extension of the state of emergency, which he described as “ineffective,” swearing that he was willing to sacrifice his life if peace could be restored to Borno State.
He said, “This state of emergency is nonsense, our major concern is to find our Chibok girls alive. I can sacrifice my life for that,wallahi,wallahi(I swear by Allah).”
He said contrary to insinuation that the public were not cooperating with the military, the governor said he wondered if the civilian JTF descended from heaven, noting that at Nganzai alone,34 civilian JTF were killed while over 50 were killed in Munguno.
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