…if Boko Haram conquers the North they’ll conquer the rest of Nigeria
By Peter Duru, Makurdi
Former Governor of Imo state, Senator Rochas Okorocha has stated that there could be internal sabotage in the fight against insurgency in the country.
Senator Okorocha who Wednesday was reacting to the killings in Borno and the general state of insecurity in the north and other parts of the country in Makurdi lamented that the situation in the northern part of the country was becoming very worrisome.
He said the time had come for traditional rulers to be entrusted with the responsibility of being in charge of the security in their domains to further added impetus to the fight against insurgency in the country.
He said, “there is an urgent need to give the traditional rulers a sense of belonging. Give them that sense of ownership of responsibility. So I advocate that traditional rulers should be given a space and powers in the constitution on issues concerning security because no one knows the community better than the traditional ruler in his community.
“Let’s give them some powers and see whether they detect when strangers come and go out of a place. They should be made the Chief Security Officers of their communities. Even if you talk of community policing without the traditional leaders involved it is not going to work.
“We at the Senate have made certain propositions and requesting the Executive to step up action, because to me the manner which those people were murdered and beheaded was an insult to mankind and to our nation.
“Nations can go to any extent to ensure that such ugly situation does not repeat itself. The worst thing that can happen to a citizen of any nation is to have a sense of insecurity in your own father’s land.
It’s a torture, and we must pray that this thing should come to an end. Anything we must do as a nation or a people to stop this must be done. But most importantly, two factors are responsible for this insurgency, one of this is lack of unity of purpose among the leaders. There is no collaboration among the elites and the leaders. The masses and youths are disconnected from the people.
“I do not think that if the entire nation is united to fight this insurgency we would have been out of this a long time ago. So there could be an internal sabotage in most cases. And so we are left with nothing but sorrow on daily basis.
“The manner they killed those people and had their heads removed and put on their bodies, the terrorists were like asking the entire nation ‘what can you do?’That is the way I see it.
“Secondly is the issue of poverty. There is a correlation between poverty and crime. There is so much poverty and hunger. And we need to collectively address the poverty in some parts of this country where it is very high especially in the north. Most times when talk about the north it looks like whatever concerns the north belongs to the north.
“In fact some think that Boko Haram is a Northern problem and has nothing to do with us, but it is not true. And injury to one is an injury to all. We must support our brothers in the north to ensure that this comes to an end. The situation in the north is becoming very worrisome be it Borno, Katsina and others. And the fact is that if Boko Haram conquers the North they will conquer the rest of Nigeria.”
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