You’ve no working strategy, go –PDP, SERAP tell service chiefs
The Peoples Democratic Party, some socio-cultural groups, including the Ohanaeze Ndigbo and the Socio-Economic Right and Accountability Project have called on President Muhammadu Buhari to review his security strategies as they decry the growing rate of insecurity in the country.
They specifically urged the President to replace the nation’s service chiefs, faulting the security chiefs’ claim that their strategies were working.
The National Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Mr Kola Ologbondiyan, in an interview with one of our correspondents in Abuja on Friday, said Buhari needed to urgently overhaul his security strategies for the nation.
He stated that in spite of the claim of security chiefs that their security strategies were working, the rate of killings, banditry, kidnappings and other violent crimes had escalated.
Ologbondiyan stated, “A few days ago, bandits killed many people in one of the northern states. Kidnappings are still going on. The service chiefs’ claim that their strategies are working is not true. Nigerians know the truth whether security has improved or not.
“We are not satisfied with the level of insecurity in the country currently. As we have always said, President Buhari needs to rejig his security strategies/architecture.”
The National Publicity Secretary of the Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Uche Achi-Okpaga, also expressed disagreement with the service chiefs in an interview with SUNDAY PUNCH.
“They are still pulverising farms and villages, killing people. So, what strategy is working? What strategy is working when the Federal Government released millions of dollars for the acquisition of weapons to fight insurgency but scores of soldiers are being killed with superior weapons by the insurgents?
“We have seen them in different videos in circulation where those who apparently complained and were termed dissident soldiers were court-martialled and sentenced to imprisonments and death, depending on the charges preferred against them. I think the service chiefs are merely scheming to be retained.”
The SERAP Executive Director, Adetokunbo Mumuni, said the President needed to rejig his security team, noting that if their strategies were working, Nigerians would evidently see them and need not be told.
Mumuni added, “I don’t know what the assertion of the service chiefs means. If security strategies have been put in place and they are working, it is for all of us to see and notice that they are working.
“Nigerians don’t feel secure. The President should rejig his security team so that the proper people, who can do this work effectively and conscientiously, can be brought in.”
The Secretary-General of the Yoruba Council of Elders, Dr Kunle Olajide, expressed the same view.
He said, “Before now, insurgency, banditry and kidnapping were restricted to the North-East but they are spreading all over Nigeria now. What we hear now is that Boko Haram is attacking military formations and sacking them.
“Those of us who were hitherto in a relatively safe place have now come under siege.”
A former National Chairman, National Coordinator, Vote4restructuring, Mazi Bismarck Oji, criticised the service chiefs and expressed doubt that they had any strategy.
He stated, “They can’t claim that strategies are working when the war against Boko Haram has remained a ding-dong affair even with the Chief of Army Staff, General Tukur Buratai, complaining of low morale among his soldiers.
“It is high time the President retired the current service chiefs who have overstayed their welcome and are battle weary as new service chiefs will come with new ideas and renewed vigour just as the current IGP has brought some fresh ideas into the Nigeria Police Force.”
(PUNCH)
