Aliyu Umar Babangida, a retired Army Captain, who also is chief executive officer, Goldwater & Rivers and Consulting Limited, has accused the Federal Government of pampering terrorists by the way it is handling the fight against insecurity in the country.
Aliyu said the question of whether to negotiate with terrorists or give ransom should not arise, but that Nigeria should use its state might to crush the terrorists.
According to him, with modern technology available to track the whereabouts of terrorists, whether in Sambisa Forest or any other hideout within the Nigerian territory, the Federal Government should not be held hostage by terrorists.
Aliyu said if small countries in West Africa sub-region could flush out terrorists from their domain, Nigeria has all it takes to do better.
He further suggested that the Federal Government should go brutal against the bandits, by executing some of them openly to create fear in their camp and also to show “who is the boss”.
He wondered why a few terrorists should continue to keep the country unease, whereas the country has all it takes in terms of men and materials, to put the enemy to rout.
He pointed out that what the Nigerian government needed to do was to make an example of some of the arrested terrorists to pass a strong message to others.
“When you publicly execute about 10 of them, others would be afraid. The terrorists are a band of fearful people; they don’t have liver, and the only language they understand is brute force,” Babangida said.
According to him, “If I were the Chief of Army Staff, I would have flushed out the rebels. I would need not more than fifteen thousand soldiers to rout them out. It is insulting to allow them to be negotiating with our government on position of strength, and talking about ransom. Government should have an upper hand, and talk to them from a position of strength.”
Recalling his experience in Liberia and Sierra Leone as a member of the Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group (ECOMOG), he said that terrorists and rebels understand only jungle language and must be dealt with accordingly.
Aliyu strongly believes that if the Federal Government should change its tactics, by going brutal against them, the game would change rapidly.
Also deploring the worsening insecurity in the country, Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, director, publicity and advocacy, Northern Elders Forum (NEF), said the constant excuses given by the presidency without taking appropriate action to deal with the situation was a clear sign that the presidency has run out of ideas.
Baba-Ahmed said this in an interview with Channel Television on Friday, while responding to a comment by Garba Shehu, presidential spokesman, who was also interviewed on the programme.
The NEF spokesman further stated that Nigerians want an end to the kidnappings, not frequent excuses by President Muhammadu Buhari.
He faulted Shehu’s comment that the administration had made several arrests, wondering why they had not been prosecuted.
“Hearing him speak in this manner, I’m more depressed than I was when I came into this studio. How will the spokesperson of the president respond, just telling people arrests are being made? We don’t see anybody being arrested. If they are arrested, why are they not being prosecuted? Yes, he’s right, banditry and kidnapping have become an industry,” he said.
According to him, “This thing has grown into a big industry right under the nose of the president. There’s no way you can deflect attention from this. How do you explain the growing sophistication of the criminals in this country?
“You can only do that by acknowledging the failure of the government to secure its citizens. Listening to Garba, to be honest, I just think that the presidency has run out of ideas.
“When they’re confronted with a very serious challenge, they go around looking for all sorts of diversions and excuses. Nigerians don’t want to hear any of this. We want a stop to the kidnappings.”
He accused the President of keeping quiet when the country is on fire.
“The President has not said anything about what his government is doing about insecurity. Grievances are real; they are genuine. The President should ask himself simple questions; why are people talking? Why are we getting a lot of complaints? We cannot have a President sitting ensconced in Aso Rock and just be blaming everybody. We would like to see less talk, more action. We want the President to speak; he needs to address the nation. Bandits cannot just be running around, taking over many states and the President is just sitting ensconced in Aso Rock,” Baba Ahmed said.
Dennis Amachree, a former assistant director, State Secret Service (SSS), has also wondered why there has been no prosecution of those causing havoc across the country.
“Has anybody been shot-on-sight as directed by the President? We see situations in this country where people have been arrested and within 24 hours, they were arraigned and sentenced. But some people are causing a lot of problem and nobody is touching them,” Amachree observed.
Garba Shehu, the presidential spokesman, said the opposition was just exploiting the challenges being experienced by the current administration, alleging that recent rise in secession agitations in the country were sponsored by enemies of the President to bully him in making wrong decisions.
