- Governor Ganduje laments over insecurity, says Nigerian forests now house terrorists, bandits robbers, seeks more military training bases
The Nigerian Federal Government says the rockets attacks in Maiduguri, Borno State capital airport ahead of President Muhammadu Buhari’s visit by Boko Haram/Islamic State of West Africa Province (ISWAP) terrorists is a new cause of concern for the nation.
The federal government however said that all the perpetrators of the bomb attacks lobbed in the vicinity of the Maiduguri which resulted in the death of 10 civilians including four children, “have been taken out.”
Multiple explosions had rocked Maiduguri Thursday with rockets landing on many houses around Ngomari, Bulumkutu and Ayafe near the airport, hours before the visit of President Muhammadu Buhari to the State.
This is just as Governor of Kano State, Abdullahi Ganduje, after a meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari to come to the aid of State Governors, saying most forests across the country now accommodate terrorists, armed robbers, bandits and criminals.
This led to massive deployment of troops to battle ISWAP elements and to foil the attack by the terrorists.
Inspector General of Police (IGP), Usman Alkali Baba, told journalists at the end of the National Security Council meeting presided over by President Buhari at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, that the ability of the terrorists to land rockets was worrisome.
Saying however that the terrorists were however unable to achieve their objectives with the rocket launch, the IGP said: “They are launching it in major towns, they are launching it in Maiduguri. It is a concern. And it has been seriously checkmated. There are efforts to continuously checkmate it.
“What did what they did on Thursday, but to a large extent, they have not achieved what they intended to achieve because of the situation the security agencies, particularly the military put in place.”
On whether the security agencies have been able to determine the origins of the rockets, Baba responded: “Yes, it had been done before and even after. Some of those who must have planned and thrown those rockets have been taken out,” he stated.
The Police boss assured that the security agencies are trying to improve on what they are already doing “to ensure there is peace, law and order during the Yuletide period and beyond.”
Reiterating President Buhari’s marching orders to security agencies, IGP Baba said “the marching orders are always the same, you have even told Nigerians the marching orders of the President. It has always been the same. There is no space, there is no tolerance to any threat to security. There is no sparing of any terrorists and there must be an intelligence gathering, there must be proactive prevention of crime and there must be checkmating of all those that are involved in criminal activities, whether it be terrorism, banditry or armed robbery or whatever and that is what we are trying to do to the best of our knowledge and ability.”
Responding to the high presence of security personnel in the South-East, Baba explained that the deployment of agents to certain areas depends of the nature society.
According to him, “where there are more people you have problem of policing than where you don’t have. What we have in some of the states is big landmass without actually having too many people.
“In some spaces we have too many people in a small place. That means there is human interaction and you need to have policing there much more than what you have where you don’t have that number of population.”
Nigeria’s Minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola, who also spoke to journalists, said there were no threat to safety and security in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja..
Asked to respond to the leaked memo by the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) alerting on impending terrorist attack in the federal capital, he said council had mandated the members of council to assure Nigerians that there was no cause for alarm.
“The message of the Security Council, through you to Nigerians, is that all measures for the safety and security of the Nigerian people and Nigeria, are in place for a successful and happy celebration of the yuletide and the New Year,” he stated.
Governor of Kano State, Abdullahi Ganduje, who regretted that most forests across the country now accommodate terrorists, armed robbers, bandits and criminals, called for the establishment of another military training base in the forest bordering the three States of Kano, Kaduna, Bauchi and Plateau, to check the activities of the criminals.
Describing the security challenges in the country as unfortunate, he said: “There are challenges all over the country that are unfortunate, but we believe Mr. President is doing his best with other stakeholders in order to curtail the situation.
“We need the helping hand, especially governors and chairmen of local governments. We have observed that the security situation now, our forests are the major problems because they accommodate bandits, terrorists and armed robbers.
“In Kano State we have taken some measures. We have two large forests the Falgore forest, which is bordering Kano, Kaduna and Bauchi and also not far away from Plateau. In that forest, we established a military training ground in conjunction with the Army. And there’s a lot of military training going on in that forest using the facilities that we have provided. I have requested Mr President to also establish another institution within that forest and that forest will be liberated completely.
“Also, we have introduced technology within the forest, from the office of the DSS in Kano and the Office of the Commissioner of Police and even from my office, we are able to monitor what is happening in that forest. And there’s effective communication between the DSS and the police and those who are managing the forest; the checkpoints and various places that security agencies are manning.
“Also community policing, we are making it a very important agenda. The traditional rulers right from the amas, district heads, village heads, ward heads, Imams and major stakeholders; we are holding regular meetings and the security agencies get a lot of information for the local people that is helping Kano state a lot.
“Also in Kano metropolitan where we have eight mega local governments, we are establishing some technology. In particular, we’re improving the network system within metropolitan Kano. We’re laying over 100 kilometres optic fibre within Kano metropolitan. So that CCTV cameras will be more effective. So that we can manage the whole mega city in terms of security and also in terms of improvement of network.
“We have also constituted what we call an enlarged Security Committee. Because limiting it to the Air Force, Army, Police, DSS Civil Defence, I think the security network in terms of flow of information, requires much more than that. So we are including Customs, Immigration, Correctional homes, those involved in Human Trafficking Prevention of Human trafficking, NAFDAC, even the NDLEA.
Federal Road Safety Corps, our own local traffic managers, Karota, the Vigilante group, all these we put them into one committee where we’re hold meetings and exchange information.
