Borno State governor and Chairman of the North East Governors Forum, Professor Babagana Umara Zulum, on Wednesday said the Federal Government is not committed enough in the fight against insurgency rocking the North-East geopolitical zone.
The governor made the comments at the fourth meeting of the Forum held at the banquet hall of the Government House, Bauchi, adding that for the war against insurgency to be won, the Federal Government has to hire mercenaries.
Zulum insisted that the Federal Government must bring in external support to end insurgency in the region but expressed hope that the meeting would proffer lasting solutions to the challenges facing the region.
While congratulating newly appointed service chiefs on behalf of the governors of the region, Zulum called on them to bring in new strategic initiatives to tackle insurgency in the North-East.
“The Federal Government has to look into the possibility of involving mercenaries with a view to ending the insurgency because it seems the commitment is not there.
“For us to end this insurgency, we must be committed enough. We must bring in external support to ensure mercenaries are hired to end this insurgency.
“I want to use this opportunity to call on the Federal Government to seek for support from our neighbours, especially the Republic of Chad, Cameroon and Niger to provide a joint action that will look into the possibility of ending the crises,” Zulum said.
He submitted that new service chiefs were already familiar with the theatre of war in the North East having previously served in various command positions in the region.
The governor expressed hope that with their appointment, there will be a significant improvement in the security situation in the North-East.
“We shall be expecting a significant improvement in the security situation in the subregion and the country at large.
“It has become as a matter of tactical necessity for the new service chiefs to devise new strategies to counter current attacks and forestall any future attacks,” Zulum said.
He assured that governments in the region would continue to support the armed forces to enable them successfully tackle insecurity in the North-East.
He, however, called for the formation of a regional security outfit as other regions are currently doing.
According to him, “on our part, in addition to the logistics and financial support we are rendering to the armed forces in their fight against general insecurity in the sub-region, we should also look into the possibility of forming a security outfit within the ambit of constitutional precedent and operational feasibility as being done in other parts of the country.”
Earlier in his welcoming address, the Bauchi State governor, Senator Bala Abdulkadir Mohammed, said the state of security challenges in the North-East called for an innovative and out of the box security infrastructure.
He said that people believe that leadership failure was the cause of people resorting to self-help.
“We must be honest in appraising the situation, be bold in confronting those who want to destroy our country and be patriotic in the choice that we must make to stop the enemies of our states.
“If we must be honest, the public opinion at the moment is that we have failed, that many of our compatriots have adamantly resorted to self-help in order to get away from this despondency.
“We must accept the fact that an over internal centralized security arrangement is an insolate tool for tackling the monstrous and death scenario playing out in our country, especially our region.
“Recently, my predecessor as F.C.T Minister and Governor of Kaduna State, Nasiru El’-Rufai, advocated the need for state police. Now I agree with El-Rufai and other governors who have called for it,” he said
