New Telegraph

Insecurity: ACF raises the red flag

The Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) has warned northern elite to refrain from making wild and inflammatory utterances on the killings and general insecurity in the North. The group, which said that at no time except during the civil war had the North been so insecure, also said that unguarded statements have a tendency to aggravate the already tense situation.

 

 

Chairman of the ACF, Chief Audu Ogbeh, who issued the warning at a meeting of the National Working Committee (NWC) of the forum held in Kaduna last week, lamented that the North has been gripped by a general sense of insecurity due to the numerous violent conflicts resulting in the killing of hundreds of people and destruction of property.

 

Ogbeh said that the 19 states of the North occupy 78% of Nigeria’s landmass, but was facing so much insecurity that people have been losing their lives on a daily basis. “We are faced with the problem of killings day and night which are greater than ever, except during the civil war. “We have not faced this type of challenge before: Killings day and night. At no time has life been so tough except during the civil war,” he said.

 

The ACF, which deliberated on a wide range of issues of concern and relevance to the North, resolved to prevail on the federal and state governments to take urgent steps to arrest the deteriorating security situation which has resulted in insurgency, terrorism, banditry, ethnic and religious disturbances all over the region.

 

The cries of the ACF, significant as it is, is just one out of the litany of cries from different parts of the North and other parts of the country to both the federal and state governments across the country to take serious steps in arresting the insecurity in the North and by extension, other parts of the country.

 

Not long ago, the National Assembly called on President Muhammadu Buhari to sack the Service Chiefs, who have been in office since 2015, when Buhari assumed office as the President and Commanderin- Chief of the Armed Forces. In fact, the last call by the National Assembly in July was the second resolution this year, having passed such a resolution in February.

 

Even though Buhari himself has acknowledged on no less than three occasions that the efforts of the Service Chiefs were no good enough in the fight against insurgency, the president has not summoned enough courage to relieve them of their jobs. It was expected that sacking them would inject fresh blood in the fight against insecurity in the country.

 

For long now, Nigeria has been at the mercy of bandits, insurgents, kidnappers, cattle rustlers, armed robbers and  all forms of criminals across the country. The security forces appear overwhelmed with the enormity of the battle to the extent that killings, mass murders, violence and brigandage have become the norm across the country.

 

We note that Buhari and almost all his Service Chiefs are from the North. Most of the key government agencies, from the military to the para-military to even the police that have something to do with security are also headed by northerners. That is why it is baffling that the three geo-political zones in the North are now hotbeds of violence in different forms.

 

Before 2015 when Buhari came to power, the major headache of the country was the Boko Haram insurgency in the North-East.

 

Owing to what was then termed as incompetence or lack of seriousness from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)- led Federal Government of Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, the insurgency threatened to spill outside the North, with bombings reaching Abuja. It is more than five years since Buhari came into office. Although his government has managed to pin the insurgents back to the far North-East states, the North-West and North-Central are no better than in 2015.

 

The South is also not safer because of the activities of herdsmen and other violent gangs parading the whole area. That is why the alarm raised by the ACF last week is significant. While most Northerners and supporters of the Buhari government in the South try to use different excuses to play down the mayhem going on in the North, the ACF laid it bare by insisting that the North has not been this insecure except during the civil war.

 

We appreciate the fact that the ACF warned the elite against making inflammatory remarks in order not to heighten the already tensed atmosphere, but the reality is that it is the government, not the people that have the responsibility of calming the tensed atmosphere. The only way to do that is by stopping the carnage going on in most parts of the North.

 

Incidentally, the President’s home state, Katsina, is not left out of the insecurity. The North-West is riddled with insecurity. The North-East is still reeling in the effects of the Boko Haram insurgency. Southern Kaduna is a sore thumb. We are therefore of the view that the situation of insecurity in the North is as serious as it gets.

 

The Governor of Benue State, Samuel Ortom, put it succinctly recently, when he said that nobody is talking about economy, investments or any other thing beyond security.

 

That is a highlight of the dire situation the country is now. We believe that the ACF is as frustrated as other Nigerians over the security situation. It is left for the governments at all levels to save the country, not only the North from destruction.

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