Insurgency in the N/East beyond Boko Haram – Northern Govs

The Northern Governors’ Forum has said that the security challenge bedevilling the North-Eastern part of the country has gone beyond the description given of Boko Haram.

Chairman of the forum and Governor of Niger State Mu’azu Babangida Aliyu made this statement yesterday at the opening of the forum’s meeting held in Kaduna.

Aliyu stressed that there is an urgent need to appreciate the gravity of the situation. “Many countries would go to war for the case of one person but it appears we are becoming callous that we don’t seem to care about what is happening. We must continue to encourage the Federal government to really do what it is suppose to do,” he said.

Aliyu stressed the need for FG to provide urgent and adequate funds to Borno, Yobe and Adamawa states afflicted with insurgencies in order to properly address related issues.

Meanwhile, in a communiqué issued at the end of the meeting, the forum commiserated with the Governor of Borno State over the recent multiple killings that led to the death of hundreds of people within the last one week.

The forum therefore resolved that the security situation in the North-East must be seen as a national concern to avert its spread to other parts of the country in view of the continuing threat from the insurgents.

The forum called on the federal government to deploy more security personnel with superior military equipment as well as to adopt measures to boost their morale to enable them effectively fight the insurgents and other threats to security in the region.

It also called for the adoption of “a common approach towards combating insurgency in the north by down playing political differences and work towards a common goal, improving on intelligence gathering and vigorously pursuing employment and youth empowerment programmes by northern states governors as a way of taking idles youths off our streets.”

Also the forum urged the government to secure the country’s porous borders by restricting trans-border movements especially in North-East states of Adamawa, Borno and Yobe states. The forum called on the Federal Government to consider national policy to settle nomads and provide adequate grazing reserves and cattle routes.