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The pan-Yoruba socio-political organisation, Afenifere, yesterday, called on President Muhammadu Buhari to consider the insecurity in the country as warlike that requires recalling retired intelligent officers to compliment the efforts of security organs to win the war.
In a statement signed by Jare Ajayi, the National Publicity Secretary of the body, Afenifere said: “There is no more time to be wasted in being more honest, decisive and comprehensive in confronting the security situation if the country is to be prevented from going under.
“Apart from the bomb blast that happened in Maiduguri on the day President Buhari visited that city, the Nigerian Immigration Services has revealed in a letter to its border posts dated December 23, 2021 that terrorists from Mali are planning to attack Abuja. The above are aside kidnapping, killing, arson and burning of vehicles conveying people from one place to another as happened on Kaduna highway and in Borno and Katsina states recently”.
According to Afenifere, the President must come out openly to give an ultimatum of two weeks to those carrying arms illegally to lay down their arms. Within the period, retired intelligent officers should be encouraged to report at the military formations nearest to them with a view to reintegrating them back into the system. Needed weapons and incentives must be provided just as the intelligence units within the security organs should be rejigged to weed out the fifth columnists in the army.
“Overtures should be made to certain powers that have control over our neighbouring countries from where terrorists infiltrate Nigeria. Among such super powers that need to be consulted are France, United Kingdom, China, Russia, Germany, Israel and the United States of America. The rationale behind this is to seek for direct assistance in terms of logistics as well as for some of them, particularly France, to work on French-speaking neighbouring countries to help curtail insurgents using their territories to infiltrate Nigeria,” the Yoruba group said,
According to Afenifere, “beyond seeking foreign help, however, the Federal Government must be ready to be more genuinely committed to removing insurgency and related criminality from our land.
“This it can do successfully by stopping treatment of bandits and terrorists with kid gloves, by genuinely providing needed equipment to the army and other security agencies, by truly engaging the youths into ventures that would earn them a livelihood, by no longer treating some bandits and terrorists as sacred cows and by liberalising the economy in such a way that the cost of commodities and services in the country would come down considerably.”
“Above all, states and local governments that are willing should be allowed to have their own policing system up to the level of investigation and prosecution without let or hindrance,” the group added.
The Afenifere spokesman said it was disheartening that terrorists had the temerity to launch attacks near Maiduguri on Thursday, December 23, 2021 around the time the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of Nigeria, President Buhari, was visiting Maiduguri and other parts of Borno State.
‘’Reports also have it that the Nigeria Immigration Service has put its officers at various border posts on red alert of a looming terrorist attack on the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.
“According to the Immigration Service, the step was based on the intelligence report it received from the Presidency that some terrorists from West African neighbour, Mali, want to move through the Nigeria-Niger Republic border to launch an attack in Abuja.”
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