Displaying items by tag: Insurgency

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo says that President Muhammadu Buhari has done his best to provide solutions to the country's security concerns, but Nigerians should not expect anything more from the Katsina-born retired major general.

When leaders of socio-cultural organizations met in Abuja this week for a retreat on inclusive security organized by the Global Peace Foundation in cooperation with Vision Africa, Obasanjo made it clear.

Elder statesmen such as Obasanjo and the Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Sa'ad Abubakar, among others, decried the country's relentless kidnappings and killings, calling for collaborative action to prevent the country's rising insecurity.

At the event, Obasanjo said Nigerians should focus on the post-Buhari period rather than waste time begging the 78-year-old President for more security solutions.

"The fact is this: President Buhari has done his best; that is all he can do; if you expect anything more than that, you are kicking a dead horse and there is no need," the 84-year-old ex-President remarked.

"We must not put our hands in our pockets... What should we do to prepare for the post-Buhari era? Buhari has given it his all. My prayer is that God will spare his life so that he may complete his time, but what happens after Buhari? What can we do to make the post-Buhari period better than the current one? That is our obligation. It's something that we're all concerned about."

Between February 1976 and September 1979, Obasanjo served as Nigeria's military head of state, then as the country's democratically elected President from May 1999 to May 2007, while Buhari served as Nigeria's head of state between December 1983 and August 1985 before returning as a civilian president in May 2015.

Obasanjo had been one of Buhari's harshest detractors until lately, when he appeared to soften his stance. The strongman of Hilltop urged Buhari in February 2021 that he needed to wake up and confront banditry in his own home — the North-West.

Many Nigerians are dissatisfied with Buhari's administration, which came to office promising to address the country's security concerns in 2015, but the situation appears to have worsened in the following six years.

A former Director of the Department of State Services, Mr Mike Ejiofor on Monday said that Nigeria is in deep crisis.

Speaking as a guest on the Programme The State of the Nation, CityTalks with Reuben Abati.

Mr Ejiofor described the State of the Nigerian Nation as a situation at the verge of war, which he noted that his description is underestimating the challenges we are facing as a nation.

He stated that the notion of public outcry calling for a change of leadership is not the problem.

He cited the instance when there was a clamour to change security heads of agencies and it was done, but after the change was done, the crisis in the country heightened, the records of banditry attacks were more, the level of abduction was escalated.

The security expert admonished the government to change strategy.

The earlier the government changes strategy, the better for us, he said.

Mr Ejiofor identified the problem with security agencies as gross underfunding.

He decried the claims made by the Minister of Finance, Zainab Ahmed concerning the budget to security agencies.

According to him, “how much of that budget is allocated to Security agencies?

“Even if the money is released, the National Assembly will send contractors to carry out the contracts.”

He recommended to the Federal government to look at report from the 2014 National Conference, because he thinks it will solve the endemic challenges we are going through as a nation, particularly, security.