– Rejects military option in Niger
From Femi Folaranmi, Yenagoa
The Ijaw National Congress( INC) has taken a swipe at the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu led administration over the increasing wave of insecurity in the country.
The INC President, Prof Benjamin Okaba in a press statement titled: “ No Paradigm Shift Yet In Security Architecture” said the insecurity being experienced under Tinubu was the same under his predecessor, Muhammadu Buhari.
Okaba, who noted that there has not been significant improvement in the security architecture of the country added that the security policy of the Federal Government under the current political dispensation is not yet clear to the citizens, who now live and go about their daily activities in subdued fear and anxiety.
According to him while Tinubu has had two security meetings since he assumed office
“sadly, this has not brought about a fundamental paradigm shift in the war against insurgency, banditry and kidnap-for-ransom in all parts of the country.”
He expressed concern that despite the security meetings, “the nation has continued to record killings and abductions of hapless citizens every other week.”
In some instances, victims of kidnapping had paid humongous sums of money to secure their freedoms from their abductors. Others have not been lucky. As of August 26, the relatives of some members of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) under the custody of their captors in Zamfara State are being compelled by some bandits to pay about 4 Million to secure their release. The country also lost about 32 of its gallant soldiers following a dare-devil ambush by insurgents in tragic circumstances, and the remains of 22 of them were laid to rest on Friday, August 25, just to mention a few,” he said.
Okaba who stated that the Niger Delta region has also not been spared with poverty through environmental degradation, resource injustice, infrastructural neglect, among others the lot of the people, stressed that there is palpable anger in the land.
The statement read in part “We view the worsening security architecture of Nigeria, especially in the Army, as the consequence of the new government’s choices wherein many experienced officers were unduly thrown into retirement to make way for an officer from a particular ethnicity to be appointed as Chief of Army Staff.
“ In the midst of this dire security situation in Nigeria, President Tinubu is devoting so much energy, time and resources to the impasse in neighbouring Niger Republic occasioned by the coup d’etat launched in July by some of that country’s putschists.
“The Ijaw nation is, however, concerned and state without equivocation that as an ethnic nationality and stakeholders that, we do not support war or any form of conflict with Niger Republic, no matter the excuses or reasons that may be proffered.
“Therefore, we implore the Federal Government to focus its attention on the internal security of Nigeria and galvanize its security policy. So far, Mr President, Nigerians are still watching the security decisions of your administration which seem not to have addressed the troubling challenge of insecurity across the country and have neither inspired confidence nor addressed it in any way.”
