The federal government yesterday decried the increasing spate of bombings in the Northern part of the country, saying the senseless attacks by the Boko Haram sect was becoming worse because state governors in the region were not doing enough to end the attacks.
It said the May 29 Democracy Day celebration billed for next week would take place despite the bombings in parts of the country by terrorists to cause distractions.
Minister of Information, Mr. Labaran Maku, made government’s position known while briefing State House Correspondents after the Federal Executive Council (FEC) chaired by President Goodluck Jonathan.
He noted that, already, the federal government had lined up activities to highlight its achievements in the last four years as part of the Democracy Day celebrations.
Blaming Northern governors for not doing enough in the war against terror, Maku said that while the grandstanding and politicking associated with the fight against terror was increasing the tempo of the activities of terrorists, the varieties of opinions among the political class help the confidence of terror groups whose objective is to divide public opinion and conveniently penetrate the Nigerian society and destroy it.
He urged northern governors to do more than criticising federal government’s decision to extend the state of emergency in the zone, by doing everything necessary to re-organize its social structure, including grass root mobilization and information gathering mechanism to halt further destruction of innocent citizens.
Maintaining that terrorism was purely a psychological war which thrives on wrong ideology, the minister said since it is guerilla tactics approach and not conventional warfare, the governors must use mass mobilization method to track down their movement and pass relevant information to security agencies for a more effective military operation.
He said: “It is not the weaknesses of the armed forces; it is the same way the Americans are getting frustrated in Afghanistan. If the terrorists there 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 re-organise its people to monitor people at the grassroots or local level. Until we have every state government determined to organise its people in terms of information gathering, we may not be able to defeat terror”.
Maku said why President Jonathan left the political structures intact alongside the state of emergency was to assist the security agencies mobilize people at the grassroots to create the necessary support to defeat the terrorists.
He lamented, however, such synergy has never been witnessed despite the persistent attacks going on in the affected states.
Maku said, “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.
“Terrorism is no longer a Nigerian affair; it has become an international problem and we need the cooperation of other countries to deal with the situation we face in the Northern part of Nigeria.
“We need the cooperation of all Nigerians to win this war because terror war is not a war to be fought only by government; we require the cooperations of all Nigerians.”
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