Maku |
Briefing
state House correspondents after the Federal Executive Council meeting which he
said discussed extensively, the recent bombings in Kano and Jos, Mr Maku rather
that preoccupy themselves with criticizing federal government, the governors of
the northern states must mobilise their people to join the fight against
terror.
“It is not
the weaknesses of the armed forces, it is the same way the Americans are
getting frustrated in Afghanistan. If the terrorist they were to stand against
the Nigerian armed forces, they will not last 30 minutes and will be completely
destroyed”
“Every
Governor of the 19 northern states must reorganize its people to monitor people
at the grass root or local level. Until we have every state government
determined to organize its people in terms of information gathering, we may not
be able to defeat terror” he warned.
According to
the minister, the required result from the declaration of the state of
emergency in some states in the north east has not been achieved because of
lack of adequate cooperation with security agencies.
” We have
not seen this preparation going on, if we did this, Chibok would not have
occurred. If we are organizing our people, I believe we would have defeated
terror by now. You need the cooperation of every little unit to expose these
people who are terrorizing the people”
“The entire
north must prepare its traditional rulers, each village heads, each religious
leaders and the people to create the necessary synergy and mobilize the people
against Boko Haram”
“We need to
speak with one voice against terrorism. But the right political mobilization
must be put in place and I think that this is what the media should support”
“When people
tell you that because we have send troops we can win the war, it is not true.
It is a war between a few ideologically programmed individuals. You need the
right networking. We do not have to wait a long time if we do what we are
supposed to do and without this cooperation, these people may continue to waste
more blood”
Mr Maku
cautioned against undue antagonism of the nation’s security services warning
that “If we destroy our armed forces, we do not have alternatives. These are
the people being killed daily and they are doing a lot for this country. These
are people whose children are being turned into orphans. This is a gorilla
warfare and we believe that Nigerians can help to win it if we prepare ourself
and organized our self to defeat terrorism by mobilizing our people to give
information about the terrorists”
He equally
cautioned politicians against unnecessary grandstanding saying that “the
objective of terror group is to divide the opinion of Nigerians, put fears into
the people and get them disunited and we need to understand that politic aside,
we must unit to fight this terror.”
“It is the
Nigerian efforts that can bring this terror to an end. We need every religious
leader to be able to speak to their people”
The
Information Minister said it is important for Nigerians to appreciate that
terrorism “is not a war of one religion against the other. It is a war against
all Nigerians and we believe that evil will never prevail over this country. We
condemn the bombing of innocent people who had no disagreement with them”
Speaking on
the forthcoming third anniversary of President Jonathan’s administration, Maku
said the occassion would used to highlight the achievements of government since
the return to democratic rule.
The minister
said “but for the sad violence in parts of the North, this country would have
seen the best managed economy in the history of this nation. One thing that
evil will not succeed in doing is that it will not distract government from the
development of this country. They may try to distract us but they will never
succeed”
Vanguard
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