Boko Haram take over of towns, a national embarrassment----APC
(Nigeria )
The All Progressives Congress, APC, has described as an unprecedented, national embarrassment the increasing seizure
of Nigerian towns by the terrorist group Boko Haram and the reported fleeing of
480 Nigerian soldiers to Cameroon
during an attack on a military base in Gamboru-Ngala on Monday.
APC in a statement in Lagos
on Tuesday by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, called on
President Goodluck Jonathan to urgently address Nigerians on the worsening
security situation in the northern part of the country that has allowed Boko
Haram to proclaim its rule over a part of the nation's territory.
It said in the face of the biggest threat to Nigeria's unity
and territorial integrity since the country's civil war, President Jonathan
must also put partisanship aside and rally the nation against Boko Haram, which
by all indications seems to be getting bolder and stronger, to such an extent
that the group is now hoisting its flag over parts of the nation's territory.
APC also restated its call for an urgent national
stakeholders' conference on security that will cut across party lines to help
fashion a solution to what has now become a clear and present danger to the
survival of Nigeria ,
while pledging its unalloyed support for any sincere effort by the Federal
Government to end the insurgency as quickly as possible.
As an immediate first step, the party calls on President
Jonathan to immediately halt the illegal electioneering campaign by his
Ministers, other appointees and supporters, saying Nigeria must survive as a
nation before any party or individual can rule over it.
''These campaigns, ostensibly by the Transformation
Ambassadors of Nigeria (TAN) but in truth being bankrolled by the Federal
Government, offends national sensibilities at a time our citizens are being
daily slaughtered and our troops are struggling against the terrorists who are
bent on balkanizing our nation. Needless to remind Nigerians that over 200
school girls remain missing more than 130 days after they were abducted,'' the
party said, adding: ''The President must put politics aside for now and lead
the nation to defeat Boko Haram.''
It also charged the military high command and its civilian
leadership to quit politicking and fashion out ways for the military to live up
to its constitutional responsibility of maintaining Nigeria 's territorial integrity.
APC said it is a shame that while the Minister of State for
Defence, Mr Musiliu Obanikoro has been prancing around in Ekiti and Osun state
marshaling troops to harass the opposition during the elections in those
states, Nigeria
has been losing territory after territory to Boko Haram.
Equally worrisome, the party said, is the development that
has seen some defence chiefs Chief become the chief campaign managers to President
Jonathan, an action that is a clear violation of the military's professional
ethics and which has embroiled the military unnecessarily in politics, at a
time they should be rallying the troops
against Boko Haram.
''Nigeria
has never had it so bad. The country's military that was being hailed worldwide
for its sterling performance at global peacekeeping missions has now reached a
level where its troops are deserting, engaging in mutiny or simply unwilling to
fight.
''There is no way to spin what happened on Monday, when 480
Nigerian soldiers escaped to Cameroon .
The Ministry of Defence called it 'tactical manoeuvre', but did not explain how
soldiers fighting insurgents along Nigeria 's
border with Cameroon will
foray 80 kilometres into Cameroon !
Also, if the Nigerian troops' foray into Cameroon was in the spirit of the
cooperation between the two countries in the fight against the terrorists, as
some spin doctors have said, why were the Nigerian soldiers disarmed and then
herded into schools in Maroua, 80kms from the Nigerian border?
''The issue that
should agitate the minds of Nigerians now is whether our troops are adequately
equipped to battle Boko Haram and, if not, what has happened to the funds
allocated for such in the past. As we said in our earlier comments on this
issue, between 2010 and 2014, a total of US$14 billion was allocated for
defence, security and the police. What has happened to these funds?
''Nigerians must start asking questions rather than just
blaming soldiers. Nigerians must ask why the alarm raised by Governor Kashim
Shettima of Borno concerning the low morale and lack of necessary fighting
equipment by the military was dismissed on the altar of partisanship. Nigerians
must ask what next, if a rag tag band of marauders are now carving out
territories for themselves in our nation. Things cannot and must not continue
like this,'' APC said.
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